Lacombe students pedal to success
Eight Classes
10 days
420 new cyclists
Our two weeks at Father Lacombe High School in October were some of the most impactful work we’ve done to date. Our Cyclists in Residence, Stuart, Sam, Mario, Chris and Kauther were at the school over two weeks in October and reached every student taking physical education this semester.
“It was an AMAZING two weeks,” said Hilary Perry, the teacher who took the lead on our classes. “We feel so grateful to have had your staff with us and working with all of our students. The feedback was amazing from our students and your instructors were so patient and knowledgeable.”
Everyone’s riding
One of the reasons these PE classes are so rewarding is that PE 10 is a required class for students. Many students are timid and reluctant, thinking that PE of for jocks. But bike riding is a different type of activity. We encourage kids not to change into gym strip. Cycling doesn’t have to be strenuous or a big cardio workout. It’s transportation.
Over the five days, our cycling instructors took the kids from the basics – bike fitting and checking for safety pre-ride, to tentative riding in parking lot, to challenging the hills in the playing fields to the pathways. Most students were able to make the 4 kilometer trip to Franklin LRT station and back.
So many students progressed from never being on a bike to success.
“I’ll never learn.”
“There was this one student that really struck me. He said “I know I can’t. I’ve never tried. It’s not my thing. I’ll never learn,” recalls YER staffer Stuart Saavedra. By Thursday, Stuart said he’d had enough of being patient. “I just told him you’re going get it today. After an hour, he starts riding. It was great to see.”
Another student was screaming and crying when she finally went the length of the parking lot on her own, no feet down.
Mario Rocha, another of our new Cyclists in Residence was also amazed that the progress of students. His favourite student was one who was very keen to figure it out.
“He might have crashed 40 times, “ said Mario. “He got up every single time and just got on again and kept trying and listening, picking up the feedback. By the next day, he was riding.”
Power of peers
For Sam Hargreaves, what struck her about the Forest Lawn Students was their compassion and support for each other. We often find a huge discrepancy in skills in a class. When the stronger riders were frustrated with the learning group that weren’t ready to leave the parking lot. The stronger riders came in to help.
“The friends just came and joined in,’ said Hargreaves. “You could see them talking and making plans then got them riding. Once their friends joined, the progress skyrocketed,” said Hargreaves.
The next step with these students is to provide bikes to the kids that want them. We have 116 kids that have asked for bikes! We thought we’d share some of the comments from students.
Why kids want bikes
“I really want to expand my learning on learning how to ride. With your club, I was able to learn how to balance and ride a bicycle in 2 days.”
“It would help go anywhere faster and not take transit.”
“I would use the bike to go biking with my friends during summer and i believe that this bike that given by me will be helping me a lot for my journey
“I need this bike to get to school and work.”
“I don’t know how to ride a bike and never owned one I would really like to own my own one day.”
More in semester 2
We are keen to be back at Father Lacombe in the Spring for more cycling and more learning
“Any chance to get you guys back we will jump all over,” said Perry.
