Student Teaching Students : Sewing Our Own Sustainable Clothing

Funded Jan 24, 2023

This student run sewing project has been such an amazing learning experience for us! Students at our school have been asking for sewing classes for many years but we have not had the chance to offer this type of activity until now. Having new sewing machines for us to work with was an amazing addition to our arts program. The fact that this semester, we also had two student volunteers to teach the class was a bonus.

The two student teachers, Elio and Saniah, had very ambitious plans for this activity period. They had visions of having their peers design and make whole outfits. They even collected a bunch of donated fabric from an organization called " Material for the Arts" so that the other students in the class could have a variety of fabrics and trimming to choose from in their sewing projects.

The whole class ( including the two student teachers) learned so much in the process. They not only learned some basics of sewing, but they also worked together in a variety of important ways. The first lesson they learned was that machine sewing is harder than it looks! The students experimented with draping and cutting. They played around with different stitches. The other lesson was that they worked together and helped each other thread the machines and use the machines as well as to troubleshoot when technical issues arose, such as needles breaking, fabric bunching and all the other mishaps that happen when using a sewing machine for the first time!

In the end we realized that this semester's project was more about learning and gaining experience than about creating the outfits they originally set out to make. We all enjoyed the process and we are eager to continue to offer this activity in the future.”

With gratitude,

Ms. Glusman