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Today was the annual Bike Rodeo, put on by the Fergus, Elora, and Alma Optimists clubs. The basic idea is that kids come with their bikes, and do a series of stations that all emhasize different aspects of bike safety. We had toddlers on tricycles up to 14 year old kids.
Bike Safety been one of my father's pet programs for years. I remember when I was in high school, and I used to help out with it. At that time, there were more resources available, and it used to run one afternoon a week, after school, for four weeks, with the rodeo at the end of it. Now, there are only enough people who'll commit to run the rodeo. It's unfortunate, because you can see the improvement in the kids who took the opportunity to do the station I was on twice, from the first time to the second.
There are some improvements. The police are much more involved now (way back when, one of the constables would come, but there were only two constables.. now the town is policed by the OPP, so they can draw in a bunch of people to help). They check helmets, and the bikes themselves. A local guy whose business is repairing bikes closed his shop for the morning to do minor maintenance, for free, to anyone who the cop felt needed it.
I was running station six, in which the kids have to ride up to a four way stop intersection, turn right, ride to the end of the marked off road section then turn around to come back to the stop sign, and then make a left turn. We concentrate on signalling and stopping.
At one point, I got very frustrated, because one of the senior members of the Alma club decided that I wasn't going fast enough, and came over and tried to take over. Well, the reason I wasn't going fast enough was that, instead of just giving kids who did poorly a low score and giving them back their card, I was pointing out to each one what they'd done right, and what they needed to practice. I had the two 4-H members who'd been assigned to help me going down the line to go over the stop-left-right signals with the kids, but of course, he screwed that up. ::sighs:: I got Dad over, groused to him, and Mr. Speedy went over to get some of the line done from the other side. (Since it's a four way intersection, you can have 2 kids doing it at a time.)
And then, of course, there's the scoring.
I think sometimes people just don't get it. I mean, handing a kid a five out of 25 (or a 0) isn't really going to help them learn to drive their bikes safely. It's going to suck the fun out of things for the kids. And yet, I got more than one scorecard where the guy on station 2 was giving them abysmally low scores. I think the lowest I gave was a 17, to the older kids who *clearly* didn't try. However, aside from the few kids who were clearly having issues with anxiety, most of them seemed to be enjoying themselves, at least with me.
And I had a fanastic time. And now, I need a nap.
Bike Safety been one of my father's pet programs for years. I remember when I was in high school, and I used to help out with it. At that time, there were more resources available, and it used to run one afternoon a week, after school, for four weeks, with the rodeo at the end of it. Now, there are only enough people who'll commit to run the rodeo. It's unfortunate, because you can see the improvement in the kids who took the opportunity to do the station I was on twice, from the first time to the second.
There are some improvements. The police are much more involved now (way back when, one of the constables would come, but there were only two constables.. now the town is policed by the OPP, so they can draw in a bunch of people to help). They check helmets, and the bikes themselves. A local guy whose business is repairing bikes closed his shop for the morning to do minor maintenance, for free, to anyone who the cop felt needed it.
I was running station six, in which the kids have to ride up to a four way stop intersection, turn right, ride to the end of the marked off road section then turn around to come back to the stop sign, and then make a left turn. We concentrate on signalling and stopping.
At one point, I got very frustrated, because one of the senior members of the Alma club decided that I wasn't going fast enough, and came over and tried to take over. Well, the reason I wasn't going fast enough was that, instead of just giving kids who did poorly a low score and giving them back their card, I was pointing out to each one what they'd done right, and what they needed to practice. I had the two 4-H members who'd been assigned to help me going down the line to go over the stop-left-right signals with the kids, but of course, he screwed that up. ::sighs:: I got Dad over, groused to him, and Mr. Speedy went over to get some of the line done from the other side. (Since it's a four way intersection, you can have 2 kids doing it at a time.)
And then, of course, there's the scoring.
I think sometimes people just don't get it. I mean, handing a kid a five out of 25 (or a 0) isn't really going to help them learn to drive their bikes safely. It's going to suck the fun out of things for the kids. And yet, I got more than one scorecard where the guy on station 2 was giving them abysmally low scores. I think the lowest I gave was a 17, to the older kids who *clearly* didn't try. However, aside from the few kids who were clearly having issues with anxiety, most of them seemed to be enjoying themselves, at least with me.
And I had a fanastic time. And now, I need a nap.
