[Ansteorra] children and teen activities in the SCA

Judie Willey littledragon0861 at gmail.com
Mon Jan 21 18:12:06 PST 2008


Greetings unto the List,

I see a lot of complaints about Youth Activities, but none who are willing
to undertake the responsibility of volunteering to teach or take on the job
of MoC.

In my three years here in Steppes, as the MoC, I have scheduled numerous
classes for Youth, and had excellent turn out, except for the teens.

They appear to be more interested in playing with their game boys, or
running around in packs, than in learning. I blame a lot of this on the
adults for not taking closer charge of those between the ages of 12 and 16 (
where they actually can fight etc)

One suggestion I have made, which I have never received any response to, is
that we develope a mentoring program where the teens can work with the
various officers within their Barony or Canton and learn about what it takes
to run an office...no I am not saying give them the checkbook...but teach
them what we do.

I also suggest that if you have teens in your Barony etc, when planning an
event, allow them to be " deputy stewards" as well as help plan various
portions of the event.

If we give them some of the responsibility they may actually enjoy the
events more.

Stepping down off her soapbox
Hadassah

On Jan 21, 2008 2:58 PM, <marlyna at aol.com> wrote:

> I have done this before. When I was teaching in Bonwicke, I had my
> students make a T-tunic by hand, weave on the Inkle loom, write the school
> song in calligraphy, the paint the border around it, and write a comparison/
> contrast paper. Then several SCA members came and we did a demo in garb. We
> then put everything in a glass showcase for the whole school to see. I saw
> more students stop and look at our display than at any other that was
> displayed that year. A couple of years later, I saw one of my ex-students
> and he told me that he still had that T-tunic. That was one unit that they
> will never forget.
>
>
>
> Later, I moved to Austin, and I took my Inkle loom to a classroom and
> taught several classes how to weave. The teacher liked it so much that she
> asked the woodshop teacher to make her a loom.
>
>
>
>
> Lady Marlyna
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Donna Nesbit <themaefare at yahoo.com>
> To: cat at rocks4brains.com; Kingdom of Ansteorra - SCA,  Inc. <
> ansteorra at lists.ansteorra.org>
> Sent: Mon, 21 Jan 2008 12:13 pm
> Subject: Re: [Ansteorra] children and teen activities in the SCA
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> I saw a woman teach her eighth grade class how to drop spin.  The "class
> clown"
> was the best spinner.  She belongs to the SCA and used her talents in a
> history
> classroom.  Children are interested-- you just have to find the spark.
>
>  Penelope
>
> Cat Clark <cat at rocks4brains.com> wrote:
>
> On Sun, 2008-01-20 at 09:17 -0800, ansteorra-request at lists.ansteorra.org
> wrote:
> > With scrolls feather quills could be used to show how to form the
> > letters.
> > I'm not sure I'd let smaller ones make their own quill pen.
>
> In my now-soon-to-be-former kingdom, the first event
> I attended here, I had every kid in the room under 16 watching
> me intently for an hour as I unstoppered my made-from-scratch
> iron and oak gall ink (and had an oak gall on hand to show off)
> and proceeded to do a fancy-calligraphy-style scroll with cadel
> using the quill I cut on the spot, on some vellum I had helped
> to make. They had never seen anyone write with a quill before
> other than in movies - so I took the time to show them how the
> end cut on the quill nib makes it easy to make medieval letters.
> I just took the school teacher filter out, turned it on and
> gave them the "from the ground up" talk for younger students
> on the evolution of paper, ink, pens and writing. Best class
> full of youngsters I ever encountered. (I don't believe in
> blowing off interested kids if I have to time to spare - kids
> interested in something historical? You bet I'll take the time!
> After some of the students I've run into, 'ya sure yebetcha I'll
> make that investment of time with kids who are interested! When
> I think of all the times I got blown off as a kid, I just can't
> do it to other kids in turn.)
>
> I have subsequently found that there are a lot of SCA kids
> out there in the 10 to 14 range who can learn to cut a decent
> quill and learn to do a decent early gothic secretary hand
> with it in under an hour when they are allowed into a regular
> collegium class (with parent/guardian attached unless I already
> know the kid) with the adults. I treat them just like the
> adults - which most kids that age really take to. It's awesome
> what you can get out of a kid when you treat them with equal
> respect and don't talk down to them, which many people do
> subconsciously without realizing. About half walk out of the
> class doing better calligraphy than many of the adult students,
> who can have a lot more years of bad writing habits to overcome
> than the kids. (I let the parent make the call if the kid gets
> to use one of the pen knives for cutting quills in a class, and
> most do let their kids do so - after they sign a permission slip;
> teaching science and crafts in the litiginous land of California
> has left me just a tad cautious...)
>
> Strangely enough, the kids 15 and up have not been students of
> the same caliber as the ones 10 to 14. Some of them have gotten
> too callous, cocky and cynical to be engaged as students in
> learning the joys of writing properly as people were meant to
> write their medieval letters, with real quills. Too many teenagers
> brought to events because their parents didn't want to leave them
> at home. (You bring a horse to water...) Sad, that.
>
> ttfn
> Therasia
> (no longer lurking, moving to Ansteorra in 2 weeks)
>
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-- 
Rebbe Hadassah Sarai bas Yossi
MoC Barony of Steppes

Dragon's Laire Ceramics
"dragon's breath to fire our kilns"



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