Well, I thought this sweater thing would be easy--and it will be--but I did have to start over today after 17 rows of 80 stitches. It could have been worse.

See, I teach middle school. One of the first things I teach my students is how to follow directions. I start the year with a specific worksheet that tricks them so if they don't follow directions, they look silly. I always thought that I was amazing at following directions, but today I was humbled. After a month of glancing over this ONE sheet, and after reading it closely yesterday, I neglected to see the word "each." So I was simply increasing one side of the back part of the bolero instead of both parts. It would have also taken me twice as long to increase to 86 stitches, so the measurement would have been off. I had no choice but to start from the beginning and undo a few hours of work. It could have been worse.

This also caused me to reflect on knitting. If I ever had to do a science experiment again, I would see if students who knit perform better in math. Why? Knitting forces you to follow directions, for if you don't, you can't create anything without it looking funny. It also teaches you to work a little more slowly and to do every stitch perfectly; it basically slowly transforms you into a perfectionist. If you don't do everything perfectly, it could cost you HOURS, if not days, of redoing the work. Therefore, when applying knitting lessons to math, I would assume that students would read directions more carefully and to do the exercises to the best of their abilities without error at any step. Otherwise they would have to redo the exercises, which takes more time.

So I have started again, but this time with an important lesson: every single word in the directions counts.