Starting in kindergarten, we are taught the “right” ways to pay attention in class: upright posture, eyes on the teacher, quiet voices. Throughout our younger schooling years, students are pushed to avoid distractions and sit still, keeping only notepads and pencils on their desks. Aside from special occasions for spirit days, high school teachers would consistently claim that small fidgets and doodling “won’t fly in college.” As a second year college student, I can confidently say that, yes, it very much does fly in college. In fact, it soars.
I learned how to knit via my elementary school librarian, and haven’t stopped since. Knitting is an incredibly therapeutic activity that rewards patience with beautiful, completed pieces, perfect as gifts for loved ones. I haven’t had to purchase a new scarf or hat in the last few years, as it only takes me a day to knit a new head covering for cold winter days. The craft is timeless and shared by people from so many walks of life, and Kenyon students are no exception. I’ve seen classmates knitting and crocheting in the dining hall, at music performances, and in the library. The Fiber Arts Club boasts a meeting space for craft enthusiasts to come together to do what they love best, and handmade accessories are highly praised in campus fashion. So, when struggling to pay attention in three hour seminar classes this year, I knew immediately what I should do.
This year is certainly is not the first time I’ve knit in a classroom setting. I remember bringing my first ever project — a patchy gray hat — to recess in fifth grade so I could work on it while my friends talked about the Warrior Cats series. In middle school, the only thing that seemed to appease my Spanish teacher was my commitment to finishing a scarf in her class. When the pandemic forced public schools to go online for an extended period of time in California, Zoom school offered the perfect opportunity to once-again dust off my needles and make goodies to send to friends who were also stuck at home in doing distance learning. However, my commitment to detailed handwritten notes in my freshman year intro-classes prevented me from bringing my projects outside the safety of my dorm room — until now.
One three hour seminar that extends into the late afternoon is hard enough. This year, I decided to take two. They are incredibly interesting, taught by professors that greatly inspire me. They can also get tiring. It is common to look around the room and see heads drooping by hour two, and participating in discussions becomes more difficult once the caffeine wears off and the readings blur together. I found that working on very basic projects with repeating rows helped me pay much better attention in these long classes, and I was able to think through difficult topics and discussions much more productively when my hands were busy. At first, I was nervous to pull out my shawl in progress, worried that my professor would find it unprofessional. I quickly realized that, well, a lot “flies” in college. As long as I continued to actively participate in class discussions and was not looking down at the project too much, nobody cared. It was a great reminder that college can be a lot more casual than other learning environments; When you’re already incredibly stressed about assignments, overinvolved in extracurriculars, and exhausted, one person crafting in a long class is not the most surprising or ridiculous thing to happen. The only downside is that my yarn stash, meant to last at least until Thanksgiving break, has certainly drained quite a bit this semester.