Sewing vs. Forensics

We’ve been visiting family in Colorado this week.  While I was working on a little hand-sewing, my 11 year old niece came up and started asking about what I was doing.  Judging by her questions I could tell she had never tried to sew.  I promptly gave her two scraps of fabric, thread and needle and gave her the most rudimentary lesson.  I told her to sew the two pieces together with a simple running stitch.  She made a little house out of a triangular and square piece of fabric. 

 When I was her age I took a sewing elective for a semester at my junior high school.  She, on the other-hand, is taking forensics.  Forensics?!?  While I do appreciate her school encouraging critical thinking skills…but, come now, forensics?  From what I gathered, students take turns being in the crime scene.  To think at her age I was learning how to sew dopey aprons.  I don’t think it is necessary that every kid learn how to sew their own clothes–as was the educational model for girls prior to 1900–I do believe knowing how to piece two bits of fabric, sewing on a button and patching a hole are pretty basic life skills.  My sister-in-law was recently teaching Little Women in a college composition class.  She has a really funny (and sad) story on her blog about assigning her students to sew a button on their clothes.

Before we left, I bought my niece a tiny sewing kit and taught her how to sew a button on the front of the little house she made.  While the realist in me thinks the sewing kit will likely end up forgotten in the back of some drawer, I do have hope that the next time she loses a button or tears a hole in a shirt she’ll feel empowered to try and fix it herself.  Knowing how to sew may seem trivial in this fast-paced world of ours.  Yet, when we toss out items that only need a couple of stitches (or a bit of glue, a little paint or an extra screw), we not only wasting our resources, but limit opportunities to employ our critical thinking skills, too.