On Letting Go: Teaching My Son How to Ride a Bike
Today my son, Isaac, age 4 and a bit, learned to ride a bike without training wheels. This is a rite of passage for any child, but as he is the youngest member of a somewhat bicycle-obsessed family, the accomplishment warranted many high-fives, a iPhone video (see below), proud emails to the grandparents and a celebratory bowl of ice cream. .... In my work, I've created many learning designs to help people master long, complicated planning processes (e.g. Results-Based Management, Dialogue Education, The Natural Step). Usually, I start by explaining the underlying theory in plain language and metaphors, and then help the learners complete a series of logically-sequenced, hands-on learning tasks that divide the process into manageable chunks. For most of my learners, this method of instruction combining theory-practice-reflection works well. But I'm not sure I can teach someone to ride a bike this way. For starters, I don't really understand the physics of how a bicycle works; and even after 35 years of riding, the best instructions I can provide are "Sit on the seat, pedal, don't look backwards, steer the handlebars towards the side that you're falling.....Don't look backwards! Watch-out!...." Bam!
HOW?, bicycles, children, facilitation, learning, pedal-gogy in Bicycles, Dialogue Education, Learning, Learning Facilitation, Training