Assisted Learning

Well, my teaching wasn't teaching someone something for the first time, it was more helping her transfer what she already knew into slightly different forms.

Holland told me she knew how to braid by starting with a ponytail, braiding the hair from the ponytail down to the ends and tying it of in the back of her head, but that she didn't know how to braid in front of her head.

I had learned in the opposite order.  My mother had shown me how to braid at an age where I was still playing with barbies.  I had managed to complete a couple of braids, but I forgot how to do it for a while, due to lack of practice.  Later, I decided I really wanted to be good at braiding, so I took one of my barbies and moved her hair around until I figured out what I had been taught before.  I practiced over and over and even initiated braiding competitions with my peers because I believed I was the best braider ever!  So, that's how I learned to braid.

I taught Holland how to braid in front of her body by talking her through each step as I moved through each step with her.  She already knew to split her hair into three groups, so I started by telling her to move one outer strand over the inner strand and under the other outer strand, then take another outer strand move it over the middle strand and under the other outer strand and repeated this over and over again until she had created a braid to the ends of her hair.  It was really easy to teach because she already knew the basic principles, she just didn't know how to apply them.

Once Holland had an understanding of how to braid in front of her body, I helped her through the process of french braiding.  We had started by each working on our own hair, but she already knew how to braid behind her head, and had already seen other people french braiding, so she tried braiding my hair...

and she did pretty well.  She was able to do both a centered braid and a side braid.   I gave her some tips on how to start, but mostly she worked it out on her own.

So, I have passed on the knowledge of how to braid hair to at least one other person.  The knowledge had been given to me by my mother and probably had been passed down through mothers to daughters for generations.  All I know is that braiding has been around ages, and the knowledge probably wan't die out any time soon.