hannalyons.weebly.com
However, there are other aspects to my life as a paper crafter that I want people to know about, and they don't really fit into my blog. Most importantly, I would like people to be able to find out where, what and when I am teaching these days, in case they would like to join a class or create a coaching relationship. That's where my website comes in. It is divided into three sections: Teaching, Coaching and Blog. In the Teaching and Coaching sections I have links to information about my current teaching schedule and contact information if you would like to be involved in coaching. By clicking the links you can sign up for a class or just get more information.
I hope this will make me more accessible and that it will encourage you to come work with me!
As an adult educator, I've been thinking a lot about what it means to teach a craft. For example, when I teach scrapbooking, I try to integrate teaching theory as well as practice. For example, I might talk about creating visual triangles and we would examine sample pages for visual triangles. Then everyone works on their own pages for a while before coming back together as a group to share how they used visual triangles on their pages. They get and give feedback to each other, return to their scrapbooks and then emerge again for a processing discussion. It's a familiar cycle of theory, practice, reflection leading to more theory, practice, reflection and so on. I encourage participants to learn about themselves, about their own creative process, their own strengths and where they want to grow. I also encourage them to completely ignore whatever we just talked about in class if it doesn't feel "right" for them! I want to help them develop tools, but how they use those tools is up to them!
I aim for helping people to leave a class or a coaching session feeling stronger, feeling accomplished, feeling more powerful and able to do what they want to do. There are so many ways that our sense of our own power is undermined in this society. Paper crafts provide opportunities for people to reflect upon their lives, process that reflection and communicate it to themselves and others. They can be a way to help people feel good about an accomplishment and to know that if they did this, whatever it is, there is so much more they can do!
Next post: on coaching