Classroots.org

My wife got a new bike last week, so we brought out the tricycle for our little girl, and I dusted off my circa 1991 Lance Mountain Powell Peralta skateboard for our son.

Without over-sharing, I’m amazed at how my son is learning skateboarding. Every time he falls, he gets back up. He picks up a new skill nightly, which means he’ll need a new coach soon since I haven’s skated since, say, 1991. Skateboarding, at least for my son, seems to be the epitome of learning by failing forward, to the side, on the curb, and off the back of the board. I never would have guessed it.

And that’s the point. What else am I missing as a teacher? What haven’t I valued yet in students’ lives that could offer our shared classroom more compelling models of learning than those I think of from my own limited experience? Why aren’t my skaters skating at school, sharing about it, and being asked to apply how they learn skating to how they learn history? Why haven’t I looked for ways to make learning history like skateboarding? How can I now design learning experiences that are toys, toy-like and/or customizable? How can I design learning experiences that motivate students to push past fear and the anticipation of pain from past school wounding? How can I design learning experiences that make failure explicitly essential to mastering new skills?

What is skateboarding for my students who don’t skateboard?

Think of me kindly as I try to better follow students’ learning instead of leading them back through mine. Think of me kindly, also, as I start skating again with my son and try to capture the zen of learning design while watching for traffic.

Here’s to the abrasions and contusions of learning.