Friday 16 January 2015

Teaching a Dinosaur to Swim

Dear Perusers:
The title was not my idea, it actually came from a conversation that I had with a dear friend who called herself 'a dinosaur that you will have to teach to swim'. She was referring to the fact that she felt that she had zero/zip in the computer skills department.
Like so many women of my zoomer generation, the computer age had indeed zoomed by them and though they can text with the best of them, when it comes to doing things like 'getting those photos downloaded to my laptop from my camera', that particular skill was never taught.
These are the women for whom family came first be it husband, father or children and they never felt that it was in their best interest to learn how to handle that ' grey box in the corner.'
But now, things are different. 
In my friend's case, her father has passed away and her husband is in care, leaving her with time on her hands. 
And o what a learning curve!
She came over to our house bringing every conceivable cord she could round up, her digital camera (thank god, not film!) her aging but still serviceable laptop and most valuable of all, time and enthusiasm.
Unlike others that Mr Bear and I have taught, Ms L had cleared away the entire day just to do this; she WAS going to learn how to download photos, create folders and sip endless cups of coffee by gum!
And so after spending the entire afternoon with us, she went away with just enough skill (we tried not to overwhelm her) and her triumphant texts to me over the next few days were gratifying to read. 
One went as follows, "I have created 19 folders!' and gone through and LABELED over 300 photos!" The push for her to do this was her most recent trip to China (photo on this blog post is hers) and the longing to share her photos with her husband in some kind of format other than lugging the laptop to the care home.

How true it is that when the pupil is ready, the teacher appears and not before.

Blessings on all those swimming dinosaurs out there.

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