Bicycle Apprenticeship

Independent bamboo frame builders are going to be speaking at the upcoming North American Handmade Bicycle Show (NAHBS). This concept of giving fish, teaching fish, and the expansions on it are good to hear because we can understand them in this analogy. Similarly we find:

“We’ve all heard the saying , “Give someone a fish and they’ll eat for a day, but teach them to fish and they’ll eat for the rest of their life.” But our friend John Perkins challenges us to go farther. He say, “The problem is that nobody is asking who owns the pond or who polluted it.”

Shane Claiborne - The Irresistable Revolution

Being able to take information and construction techniques that utilize local materials and skillsets is one of my aspirations as an educator, but I do not think that any of this can be separated from the political backdrop of our world. To this extent the small act of teaching someone to build a bicycle from their surroundings is one motivated by goodwill and genuine love for another. I see that as Hope.

The aftermath of nonviolence is the creation of the beloved community, so that when the battle is over, a new relationship comes into being between the oppressed and the oppressor.

-Dr. Martin Luther King Jr

The reason I want to be an educator is to help those who struggle with the basic problems of warmth, food, and shelter. The reason I am pursuing training to be a teacher is to have more to offer people in need, meanwhile wrestling the basic problems of a privileged life in a privileged environment. My inclination toward reformation comes not only from my education as a mechanical engineer, but from the rest of my life as well. It comes from the people I meet, from the eyes and hearts of the lost and lonely.