More ≠ Better
The evolution of our teaching & our classes
I used to be a teacher in my former life. I love working with kids, teens, and adults, I love imparting knowledge, I love seeing eyes light up whenever a connection is made. After working years of dead end retail jobs, the first real job I ever liked was working at an afterschool program in Richmond, California. A couple years after graduating from Berkeley (go Bears 🐻) I went off to 'teach' english in Japan for 3 years. Sometimes it was glorified babysitting, but for the most part I was able to flex my creative muscles and get kids to at least participate (kids in Japan are the same as they are here 😂)
So when it came to starting up a business that mixed one love (cycling) with another (teaching), my brain was turned ON and all this stimulation made me want to give away the farm. In 2012, our first Intro to Maintenance classes were 6-7 hours long, and we covered the M-Check, Puncture Repair, Rim Brakes, and Gears. With 5 students. Oh my.
Just because you think you're getting more bang for your buck, doesn't mean that you're actually going to soak up what you're learning.
I started to notice students' eyes glazing over at about the 2-3 hour mark. But there was so much to cover, we had to power through. However it was becoming apparent that if we wanted students to actually comprehend what they were learning and not just go through the motions, we were going to have to break topics down into manageable chunks. Everyone was wasting time and money otherwise.
One of the mechanics at the time was also a pedagogy nerd, and we started to comb through our class content to make it not only palatable but digestable. We divided the topics into separate topical modules, set limits on what we would cover and for how long, and encouraged different teaching and learning styles. Ever since then, we are always reviewing our content, and always asking students for feedback.
GUIDELINES WE USE WHEN DESIGNING CLASSES
3 hours tops with a break in between, 20 mins max on any individual topic: there's only so much knowledge our brains can take before we need to rest/sleep in order to absorb information
3 students max: class times are shorter and students get individualised attention
Students should face the back of the room, so as not to be distracted by outside goings on (we learned this the hard way when we tried teaching outside)
Content should be on one topic and info should scaffold on top of each other: this is where a linear lesson is important - jumping around creates confusion
Start with something practical to get the hands involved: too many classes start with the theoretical, which can understimulate kinaesthetic learners
Invite students to ask questions at all times: asking questions means you are actively participating in your own learning comprehension
Urge students to take notes: the mere act of writing something down cements it in your brain and you probs don't need the notes anymore!
HOW DO YOU LEARN?
We aren't born knowing how to learn. And we live in a society that seems to think that we are. For some reason question-asking and note-taking are seen as a weakness (if I had a penny for every time someone said “Can I ask a stupid question?” I wouldn’t scramble every month to pay rent 😂) But there's no way in heck you can absorb 3 hours of knowledge just by listening alone. So learning how YOU learn is an essential part of self-education.
Humans learn in different ways:
Visual
Auditory
Reading/Writing
Kinaesthetic
(an attractive acronym: VARK! Who goes there!?)
Most of us will be more than one type of learner as well. So we use different methods of presenting knowledge to help reach these different ways of learning:
Visual: whiteboard writing, tactile & visual examples, student taking photos to jog memory
Auditory: instruction by the tutor, question asking
Reading/Writing: taking notes (old fashioned pen/paper or phone)
Kinesthetic: students observing examples and then doing the work themselves
And we also think of different ways to explain difficult topics! Sometimes it’s a metaphor, sometimes it’s a drawing, sometimes it’s changing the language we use. That’s why we do skillshares amongst us mechanics, because there’s always a new way to teach something 🚀
The one thing I wish that caught on was our online fix-a-longs, Hex Club. These were weekly accountability sessions designed to create the habit of maintenance, which is different from repairs! Maintenance prevents or postpones costly repairs. It’s like brushing your teeth vs. a root canal.
But alas, it seems that y’all don’t particularly enjoy zoom learning, so we’re focusing our limited energies on in-person offerings.
Intro to Maintenance SOLD OUT
So we added more classes for July!
Lucky for us Hayley now has Thursdays available, so there are some Thursday evening classes that have been added.
I had the pleasure of teaching award winning food writer Felicity Cloake on a recent class 🙌 She was a great student, and so was her bike Eddy!
Our classes are smol but mighty. We love teaching and we truly believe the more you learn about your bike, the more likely you are to ride it and infect others with your passion. And if there’s one thing we all need right now, it’s more people riding.
BUY MY LIMITED EDITION BOOK 📚
You heard Felicity, I’m a talented writer, and I wrote a book called How to Build a Bike! It’s perfect for total beginners, and it’s not just about building up a bike: I cover how to take things off, where to buy parts, what tools you need (hint: not all of them), basic maintenance tips, and much much more.
It’s now officially out of print, and I bought up all the remaining 700+ copies in the world.
NEWS FROM FRENS
FROM KRISSIE:
East End Trades Guild member Len Maloney from JC Motors needs our help. TfL told Len to make the choice to vacate his arch and leave Hackney or pay 70k in arrears by this Friday 9th June! He has written an open letter requesting a meeting with Sadiq Khan after TfL refused to consider a counteroffer which would enable him to stay. Please add your name as a signatory to show the Mayor of London just how many Londoners stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Len here: https://bit.ly/LetsKeepLen
Len has been overwhelmed by your support which is keeping his spirits lifted and strengthening his resolve during this challenging time. Thanks to all of you we now have a meeting in the diary between Len and the Deputy Mayor of London for TfL this Monday 10th JULY!
WHAT IF SEB DANCE DOES NOT AGREE TO LEN'S ASK TO RENEW HIS LEASE BASED ON WHAT HE CAN AFFORD?
If Seb Dance does not agree to keep Len in his arch in Haggerston then we have to escalate things again. You may not know that Len has a fine singing voice and regularly attends Karaoke to ease the tension. If the meeting does not go Len's way our plan is to do a collective flashmob singing action in a public place to serenade Sadiq Khan with the Ben E King classic - Stand By Me!
First Len will sing solo. Then those of you who choose to will literally Stand By Len until we have hundreds of people standing by him and singing with him. This plan b only works if we have enough people committed to showing up. Words inspire but only action creates change!
Click here to let us know that you will show up in person at a secret location on Thursday 13th next week!
MOAR NEWS FROM FRENS
On Wednesday the 12th of July, New Forest Off Road Club is hosting a P.A.S.T. adventure talk at the Wizard Works base in the design district, north Greenwich. P.A.S.T stands for professional amateur story time.
The P.A.S.T adventure series spotlights the amateur. The person who already won by getting to the starting line. The person who got out of the rut and went on an adventure. The family friends who tackled the Devon Coast to Coast with two 8 year olds and fully loaded panniers.
We're not doing anything the best, or for the first time. We're not the fastest and we're not being sponsored. There's no medal at the end. We're powered by blissful ignorance and naive optimism.
That’s all for this week. I’m still getting the occasional wave of covid fatigue (thank goodness for hammock donated by SBC Cycles), and I can’t smell the rotting flesh coming from the butcher’s bin next door (small mercy?), but I do think I’m getting better. I have started the great Youtube experiment, and uploaded a few videos there.
We have received some unpleasant and troubling VAT news, but more on that in a future newsletter. In the meantime, the best way you can support us is:
tell a friend!
Maybe I’ll turn on the paid subscriber option on this here site.
Anyway. À bientôt!
Jenni x