By Pip Penney
Available from CC Publications.
Foreword by John Harrison
Over the years, many books have been written about teaching people to ring a bell. They vary greatly in substance and style, each drawing on its author’s insights and experience, and some even take different directions. What they have in common is a focus on telling the ringing teacher ‘what to do’ and ‘how to do it’.
This book goes beyond that, and looks at ‘why?’. It also looks beyong the world of ringing to the much wider and richer world of scientific research into the teaching and into the process of learning new skills. This additional perspective should be of great value to those of us who teach ringers. Ringing is a traditional craft, but with the high fall-out rate achieved by traditional teaching methods, we should all be willing to look at what the science of learning can tell us.
Some of the research findings presented here will confirm what many teachers of ringing had already discovered by trial and error, while others will challenge accepted ways of doing things. That is to be expected with cross fertilisation of ideas from different domains.
The author was fortunate to go through her own learning curve as a ringer after she had already acquired professional knowledge about how people develop new skills. That enabled her to take a fresher look at ringing teaching than most of us, who began teaching ringers without the benefit of such an independent perspective.
John Harrison
Chairman, CC Education Committee 2000-2008
