Creating leaders with biking

Think back to when you were in high school. Who were the leaders in your grade? It was probably the kids who were doing student council, in the national honor society, the school athletes, and stuff like that. But what about those kids who didn't do any of those things, and had other interests that no one seemed to care much about? I remember when I was in high school, I breathed, ate, and lived skateboarding. I invested thousands of hours into skateboarding, yet did that make me a leader in the eyes of my school and my community? Quite the opposite actually. I was seen as more of a rebel to society or street punk than anything else, doing something that many people considered destructive. 

Well now I'm in college, and I've noticed that a lot of high school kids have gotten really into riding bikes, particularly fixed-gear bikes, which is essentially a road bike that has one gear that you can't coast on. The biggest appeal fixed gear bikes have for a lot of these kids is that it allows them to explore the streets while doing tricks that can only be done on "fixes", particularly skidding and track standing.

Okay so what does this all have to do with leadership? Well I have a belief that every high school kid can be a leader, not just the kids who are in the top of their class or doing student council, but also the kids who spend their days after school on the street messing with bikes. From a shallow perspective, they may just seem to be delinquents terrorizing the streets with their extravagant colored fixies. But take a deeper look and you'll see that it takes a tremendous amount of dedication and passion to do what these kids do. And you know what's interesting? Dedication and passion is exactly what it takes to be a leader.

Imagine if these kids who are passionate about bikes can use that passion to do something positive for their community. That's the idea behind the class that I started teaching at a local high school. Every Friday after school, I meet with a group of high school students who are passionate about biking to talk with them about their communities and what we can do to solve certain issues. 

Together we planned a bike ride in which we'll be exploring their community and visiting certain places that my students think are important, either positively or negatively. Some positive examples my kids brought up were the park, the swap meet, and a bike shop. Some negative places included a dirty alley way and the park where various gangs meet at. We agreed that that park is a bit too dangerous for our ride though.

Hopefully this bike ride will give us inspiration as to what we can do with these places to help improve their community. Right now, the biking aspect of my class is mostly as a means for exploring their communities which is totally fine and awesome, but maybe we'll be able to figure out a way to improve the community directly through biking somehow. I was thinking my students could eventually organize a bike ride for their family and neighbors, promoting the environment and exercise. 

I've been teaching this class for a couple of months now, and it's still very unsure as to where we're headed exactly. What's for sure though is that my students are undoubtedly leaders, even if they don't think that about themselves. Yet.