I discovered early on in my seminary career that knitting is beneficial to my class time. I had known this about myself in undergrad, but was surprised that this continued to be true in my seminary experience.
Part of what surprised me is due to my faulty expectations, part of it due to a forgetting of my own learning style. I expected each class to so enrapture my heart and attention that I would be hanging on every word. I think I had this belief that the professors would be these "super spiritual" Christians and their every word would be gold. Now to be honest, there are some great professors here who teach in engaging and inventive ways.
But their every word is not gold. Sometimes they even ramble. Sometimes my own personal studies have already prepared me for a class so that it doesn't seem like I'm learning anything new (not to their fault).
So I started knitting. Knitting helps me stay engaged when the professor may ramble or go off on good stories, but those that are unnecessary for testing - if I didn't knit, I'd write these stories down and then study them before a test and overload my brain with what I need to learn, not good. There's something freeing about knitting in that it just helps my hands stay busy so my mind can stay engaged.
So what I've learned is two-fold. The first is that professors are people just like any other Christian; their every word may not be gold (they even make mistakes sometimes!). The second is that I need to be ok with how I learn and not try and be a "good student" who just takes furious notes; it really hurts me in the long run.
The fun (unexpected) first lessons I learned at seminary.
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