Over the handlebars #blimage

I vividly remember learning to ride a bicycle, even though I was quite young at the time. I remember Mum buying me some 'stabilisers', a small pair of extra wheels that were attached either side of my rear wheel to allow me to keep my balance. I rode around on these for quite a while before I eventually gained the confidence to ride without them. I wonder how much longer it took me to learn to ride because of those stabilisers?

To help my kids when they were learning to ride, I would run alongside them holding the frame, acting as their support until I thought they were ready to ride on their own without falling over. They learnt a lot quicker, partly because they were unaware when I had let go. When I was learning, my stabilisers were conscious scaffolding, and I knew when they were gone. It took me a lot longer to gain confidence and I tended to rely on those little wheels a lot more than I should have.

My kids on the other hand, gained confidence in riding because they assumed I was there supporting them, when in fact I had already let them go. Acquiring skills is like that. Students are often more capable than we think they are. Providing too much scaffolding can be counter productive, and learners can take a lot longer to gain their confidence. The quicker a learner becomes independent, the more confident they will become. Provide them too much support, or intervene too frequently, and they will take longer to discover their own balance.  
No amount of scaffolding or support could have prepared me for the incident that occurred when I was 18 years old. My mother had asked me to take a carton of fresh eggs to her friend, who lived a few streets away. I cycled over holding the eggs in my left hand while steering my bike with my right hand, which also controlled the front brakes.

As I approached the lady's house, a sudden gust of wind blew hard, and I veered into the kerb. Automatically, I grasped the front brakes with my right hand, and the bike stopped. I however, continued, over the handlebars, and both I and the egg carton went up in the air.

Oh the irony. My fall resulted in a fractured collar bone and I spent 24 hours in hospital while the doctors observed me for concussion. The eggs however, were unharmed. Make of that what you will, and then, if you are up for it, write a blog using this image for the #blimage challenge:

Photos by Darren Johnson (courtesy of David Hopkins) and Steve Wheeler


Over the handlebars by Steve Wheeler was written in Plymouth, England as a part of the #blimage challenge and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.