Warren
I got into biking six years ago, maybe seven, for stress reasons.
I had a fun time at school with the earthquakes and the trauma kids. There was a bubble of kids that came through very, very broken, and then there was another bubble that came through immediately after. We had sort of six, seven years of just madness; of assaults on staff every day, kids getting stood down every five minutes, and as soon as they’re gone, you get another one from another school because they’re all screwed up too.
It was all earthquake-related, and at the time we had half our school closed to rebuild, we had prefab blocks, and they closed off half our field so that we had zero space, a mess of classrooms, total chaos.
And no one had a clue how to deal with it. I certainly didn’t, because, like a good Kiwi male, just shut up and take it.
It was after, probably two or three years of coming home and staring out the window for hours, I bought a bike. First I stole my son’s bike, and went riding at Hanmer with a mate. I obviously quite enjoyed it and ‘management’ said, ‘You really like that, you should get a bike. Find the one you want.’ Arguably the greatest thing any wife ever said!
So I got into that just as a means of dealing. You can’t focus on anything other than being on the bike, if you’re riding downhill. I went up the hill, smashed my hand up, and that was me. I was just addicted. Then I bought a dirt jumper, and I rode it here.
It’s a bit of a community here. This is my Friday night thing. It’s literally like going to the pub with the boys but it’s just a bit more active.
But it does seem like it’s crying out for some organized street art. It’s a skate park. It’s supposed to be bright-colored and covered in paint and graffiti and art. The skateboarders will tell you the same thing. It’s a creative space. That’s probably part of the appeal for me too, because I do lots of art.
I do art at school with kids. The kids I work with, if you can kick a football, ride a bike or draw cool stuff they love you, and then you can connect. And if you’ve got a problem kid who hates the world, whatever I need to do to connect with them, I do, right?
If you have an adult role model that doesn’t scream at you or hurt you when you do things wrong? Makes a difference.
So many kids that can’t do sitting still in class but they respond to art. I particularly like tricking them into learning letters because they’re drawing them instead of writing. And I mean, you can teach them maths with art, you can teach them literacy with art.
We call ourselves learning assistants now, they used to be teacher aides, and now apparently, we’ve been upgraded! I sometimes used to think I was wasting my time, but then, my principal told me that by doing what you do, you’re allowing the other kids to learn everything and teaching these kids something.
I work with them one on one. And they need breaks every 15 minutes. Go outside, be active, come back in. I had one kid I was teaching how to do graffiti, and that was his reward time. If he did his maths he got half an hour with me at the end of the day.
He doesn’t need that anymore. He’s killing it! He might not end up the PM, but he’ll fit into society somewhere. So, job done.