Skip to main content

Winter is Here



We extended our riding season as far as we could, and now winter is here. In reality, winter got here a few weeks ago, but we pushed back against it, not ready to give up our daily rides yet. The final ride of the season bathed us in the warm light of the sunrise on an otherwise frigid morning. 
As luck would have it, the last two days of our scheduled session were rainy and icy, so it was a perfect opportunity to wrap up some loose ends. On Monday we washed off and dried the bikes, and put them away for the season. It was cold enough outside that the water from the hose froze on some of the bikes on contact.

By this time, our system for moving the bikes in and out of our tight storage space had evolved into a well choreographed routine. Kids delivered their bikes to the door of the space, and I stacked them up in just under four minutes.







On Tuesday, we went over the answers to the Road Readiness Written Test as a group to try and clear up any misconceptions or missing information. I took the early finishers aside and taught them how to change a tire. 



Later Tuesday morning there was an all-school assembly organized by the BMS Wellness Team. They made space for us in their agenda, and I took the time to congratulate the RFF kids in front of the entire school for their successful participation. I explained how much we had ridden, and summarized the skills and concepts everyone had learned. Each student was presented with a certificate. They were proud of their accomplishments, and I was proud of them too!

I am certain there will be kids clamoring to participate in RFF in the spring of 2018. Between now and then, I will be debriefing with my colleagues and volunteers to help inform future programming. As is often the case, scheduling is the crux when it comes to initiating a program like Riding For Focus in the public school setting. Teachers, who are held to more and more standards by the Department of Education, are possessive of their instructional time with students. I understand this, but at the same time I think it raises the point that we need to begin re-thinking the way we "do school." I am with Dr. Kim Price of The Specialized Foundation on this subject. Kim, who holds a Ph.D in Neuroscience points out that extensive research has shown that, "...when kids are given the opportunity to be active during the school day, they actually perform better." 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

And so it begins!

The mornings have been cool and crisp as we kicked off Riding For Focus this week. Fall is in the air, and we have twenty-one rosy cheeked middle schoolers eagerly hauling their bikes "hand over hand" from the storage area to the bike corral each morning.  They are motivated to get out riding as quickly as possible, so they manage to be focused and efficient, even at 7:00 am. So far we have been going through the curriculum lesson by lesson, checking off skills as we see them demonstrated. Fitting and checking your bike before riding, fitting your helmet properly, how to start, how to stop, how to shift gears, how to maintain a consistent pedaling cadence. It's brilliant to have kickstands on these bikes so we can create a mobile bike corral wherever we go. Getting kids in close, momentarily asking them to separate themselves from the distraction of those shiny new bicycles, and then releasing them back to their rides after instruction creates the space for clear deli
2 comments
Read more

Putting it All Together

Today was one of those special days when so much seemed to come together. We are in the middle of week #5 of this spring's Riding For Focus session, and we have worked hard on learning about many aspects of cycling. But we have also pushed outside the set curriculum. We have:  Ventured onto trails to learn mountain biking techniques Ridden with bike-commuters during Bike to Work Week Cleared trails Shaped and rock-picked the pumptrack Learned basic field repairs Become acquainted with the local trail system Made new friends  Today I took my eighth graders out onto a section of the Whiskeag Trail known to the mountain bike community as "Gnarcore." It's an appropriate name for this steep jumble of roots, rocks and skinny bridges. I was sure to bring my Wilderness First Responder first aid kit, and I required kids to drop their seats to the frames. I also spotted them on tricky sections and even had them walk the bikes in the most high-consequence spo
Post a Comment
Read more

Motivation

Riding bikes at school is so much fun that kids will go to great lengths to get to do it. We are into week #3 and attendance for Riding For Focus has been close to 100%. Anecdotal reports from teachers and parents are that kids are generally calmer, happier and more focused since they began riding. While these aren't scientific findings, they are still worth paying attention to.  Over the weekend a friend shared an article with me about youth programs in Iceland. The country had terrible problems with alcohol abuse and disengagement among their teenagers in the late 1990's. Introducing consistent after-school activities over the last two decades that got kids moving, interacting with each other, having fun, exploring their interests and challenging themselves turned the culture around. Today, Iceland has cut their rate of teenage alcohol abuse by 75% and improved the emotional state of their kids as well. In a similar way, Riding For Focus has been a lifeline for some of o
Post a Comment
Read more