When you become a teacher people will often ask you, “Why did you become a teacher?” When you’re a teacher who is seemingly good at lots of things, and other people consider you smart, you hear that question a lot. The truth is I stumbled onto teaching. Even before I officially became a teacher I was teaching people random things. When I first started I was pretty bad at it, but my pupils still learned. There was a lot for me to learn about teaching, especially since I started teaching around the age of 14. I can’t remember when my first time truly teaching someone something was. However, I do remember the first time teaching someone something earned me respect.
I love skateboarding, even though I am bad at it. My old skate crew tolerated me a lot for my lack of skills. My lack of skill pushed better skaters out of our crew because they didn’t want to be with a weak team. People wanted me out of the crew due to this, and me being an asshole. However, my crew had my back. One of our members, this little kid named Aaron, didn’t like me. He was always stepping up to try and muscle me out because he was clearly a much better skater than me. He did not like me because of this. He felt I had unearned respect. I 100% understood how he felt, and where he was coming from. However, I still told him to fuck off. We didn’t like each other, until the day I became his teacher.
There was a rule among skaters in my area: Never go skating alone. Tons of skaters had stories about people harassing them. I knew quite a few people who had weapons pulled on them for simply walking while holding a skateboard. We could be skating through a neighborhood and people would come out and fuck with us. To reduce your chances of people trying to earn their stripes off of you, gangs in the area would require you to beat up people to be able to join, you never skated alone. Despite this rule, I often skated alone when I would go home at night.
One day I hear a knock on my door. Aaron wants to skate and no one is able to. He’s asking me to go with him because he is trying to get better and needs to skate everyday. I wasn’t doing anything so I decided to go. As we’re walking to the church across from my apartments I’m already regretting this decision. We’re both being little shits to each other, after all it was a mutual hate. However, his hate started to leave when the heads of the church came out to talk to us. It was obvious they didn’t want us skating there, but I was able to smooth things over. Promised we wouldn’t destroy anything and if we saw anyone attempting to break into the head priest’s home, we’d fight them off. The church had been vandalized recently, and it was happening almost weekly. So, this was a tall order to pull off. I sweet talk my way through and we’re allowed to skate. Aaron realizes one of the most important things about me: I can talk to authority. This ability impressed him and he said he understands why they keep me around, but not as a crew leader. I tell him to fuck off and skate.
I’m practicing my speed skating, which is about the only thing I can still do, and he is practicing this monster jump off their front door. The entrance had a walkway where a wheelchair ramp and a 6 step stairway met. You could easily get 3 pushes if you started at the ramp and went to the stairs . However, there was a massive 6 stair drop across from the door to enter. The drop was blocked by a few small bushes. You needed to ollie over these bushes to be able to enjoy this drop. The issue was you couldn’t get 3 pushes. There wasn’t enough room. You barely had enough room for 2. You had to get 2 pushes real quick and the ollie the microsecond your foot is on the board.
Aaron didn’t understand this. He kept trying to get 3 pushes. When I offered him help he snapped back with, “If I need help talking to an adult I’ll talk to you. I know how to skateboard, unlike you.” So, I stopped my skating and just plopped down near to watch him eat pavement over, and over, and over again. Watching his board get stuck in the bushes and him tumble over face first into the cement. When he decided to rest I asked him to ollie over my board. He could do it easily. Then I gave him a set of restrictions. He wasn’t able to ollie over my board with these restrictions. After accusing me of being unreasonable I explained my line of thinking. These restrictions were to mimic his current jump. I explained his issue is he’s still thinking he has the room to get proper footing and speed. Finally he barely makes it over my board and then gets read for the drop again. I tell him he’s not ready and to try a few things before going again. He starts shit over it but I wouldn’t let him onto the drop until he finished my lesson.
See, this entire time I had been watching his feet very closely. My new instructions were footing advice. To him I was a worthless poser who couldn’t skate at all. This meant hearing my advice was seen as an insult. When he finally caved to get me to shut up he noticed an improvement. He cleared my board within these restrictions, but not enough to clear those shrubs. I tightened the restrictions and offered more feedback. I even taught him a bit of physics to help him with his skateboarding. By the time we were finished with my impromptu skate lesson he was able to clear the bushes with enough height to do a heelflip. That was when I earned his respect, and when I realized I had a way with teaching.
Later he apologized and said he understands why I am one of the co-leaders of the team. From then on he was always wanting me to pal around with him. I could offer him advice and lessons to improve, despite having no experience in it myself. It actually made things easier with the crew too. People were debating kicking him out, despite his skills, because they didn’t like how he disrespected me. I didn’t give a shit about the disrespect. Kid had the skills, and I didn’t. The skills I had were very different and hard to see. Eventually Aaron helped us grow until the eventual disbanding caused by life. I’m unsure what happened to Aaron, but I hope he kept skating. Little dude had mad skills and he could have easily gone pro. The issue is if he got involved with the other crews. A lot of them were heavy into drugs which ruined a lot of the other skaters. One of our former leaders left for another crew and just became so zonked out on oxycontin, pot, and LSD that he stopped skating. Of course, I hope the rest of our former crew is safe too.
Remember kiddos, just because people don’t have an immediate skill/talent doesn’t mean they don’t have others. Sometimes hooking up with a team of just the best will be your downfall too. Stay true to who you are. I’ve got some reflecting to do.