Thoughts on the pedagogical impact of skateboarding and the work of skate-aid international e.V. from skate-aid founder Titus Dittmann:

skate-aid - We empower kids!

But how and why?

Skateboarding is the only sport in which children are almost always better than parents and teachers
That empowers kids!

Skateboarding is pure self-determination. Kids make all decisions themselves: When? Where? What trick? With who?
That empowers kids!

Skateboarding is more than sport. It is a movement-oriented youth culture and an aesthetic cooperative. It has to do with values ​​and attitudes.
That empowers kids!

Skateboarding is one of the few remaining spaces in which children experience self-socialization.
That empowers kids!

Basically, "Incarnation" is a mix of foreign socialization and self-socialization. It depends on the balance of the "socialization mix", and this is no longer balanced in our western society, i.e. mainly determined externally for many children. School now goes on until afternoon or evening. Freedom for self-determined action has become tighter and is further reduced by well-intentioned support efforts by many parents. This is reinforced by the following development: More and more parents' time meets fewer and fewer children per family. The result: More and more “parent cabs” bring children from sports club to sports club and from support course to support course. Even the small daily freedom, the way to school is taken away from many children. Pre-schoolers are often no better off. They too are now experiencing predominantly external determination, because well-intentioned support is increasingly squeezing out the self-determined freedom of children. We all know the term “work-life balance” and mean the balance between externally determined actions (work) and self-determined actions in open spaces (life).
Excessive mothering takes away the children's “work-life balance”. Because when adults with educational goals actively influence children, it’s external determination and thus means "work" for the kids.

Due to the lack of freedom for self-determined action, kids are deprived of the opportunity to take responsibility for themselves at an early stage and thus the opportunity to learn early on the important and necessary skills and characteristics for life that cannot be imparted externally.

Skateboarding is self-determined action and freedom.
That empowers kids!

Important skills and characteristics for a self-determined and satisfied life are:

• Willpower

• Willingness to perform

• Endurance

• Self-discipline

• Bite

• Responsibility

• Determination

• Stability

• Creativity

All of the above can be subsumed under the term intrinsic motivation. For me, intrinsic motivation is the most important skill that cannot be learned at school or externally determined. You have to have experienced this yourself to have it permanently.

Intrinsic motivation is also more than "just fun". It is the need and the ability to achieve a self-imposed goal with enthusiasm. People - and especially kids - are able to do incredible things if they are motivated. The strongest form of motivation does not come from external motivation or external pressure, but comes from within, from ourselves. I would like to say:

"The heart has to burn!"

Intrinsic motivation creates a lot of child's play that can mutate into torture at school. Skateboarding works with intrinsic motivation. The enthusiasm for skateboarding simply brings this intrinsic motivation with it automatically.

Learning doesn't have to be "bullshit"! Let the kids go!

Skateboarding also has something to do with flow and "deep learning" takes place unconsciously during this flow! Deep learning in self-determined spaces is what allows us to learn important things on the side. Things that shape our character and shape our willpower - but it’s much more:
Because through all the skills that we acquire in self-determined learning, we start a fascinating process ("positive spiral") in which scientific knowledge of pedagogy such as self-concept, self-efficacy and self-efficacy expectation play a major role. This process is based on the knowledge of the person about his personal characteristics, abilities, preferences, feelings and behaviour and his conviction to organize and perform certain actions in order to achieve specific goals. We all know the terms self-confidence, trusting ourselves, etc. that describes something similar.

This is how learning with intrinsic motivation works:
Because we want something and we have a goal that is really important to us, we make an effort, of our own free will. That’s why we endure setbacks and overcome internal and external hurdles. Because our goal is so important and we firmly believe in achieving it, giving up is worse than persevering. We will eventually achieve it - and the pride that we feel, the confirmation and recognition that we (and others) then give us is a thing that money can’t buy. This is the first round of this positive spiral!

What’s more precious, however, is what’s coming next, the second (and third, fourth) round of this positive spiral: we have gained confidence and the self-concept improves. The self-concept is our inner picture of ourselves, our idea of ​​who we are, what’s our skills, how strong we are, what we can do.

With the recently hard-earned success in our bag, we realize: “I can do something! Let’s go on we can do it better! I can do difficult things too! Nothing and nobody can stop me “. This is the new, increased self-esteem and it has a very direct consequence: I’m more confident than before, setting higher goals – I’m downright hungry for the next round, the next goal, because: “If I did it, then I can do the next one too! "

Confidence is an incredibly powerful engine. That means “positive spiral”. It’s about time that the glass is half full and not half empty. We love to talk about destinies that result from "negative spirals" or "vicious circles" and forget that this mechanism also works upwards.

The best positive spiral I know? Skateboarding! That empowers kids!

Word has got around that skateboarding is developing the motoric of the kids incredible fast. This is due to self-determined learning.

For me, “observational learning’, as the pedagogues call it, is also part of self-determined learning. It’s a common learning practice in skateboarding and goes like this: If a skateboarder tries a trick but does not succeed, realizes that another skateboarder is already good at this trick, he simply observes the other skater, internalizes the sequence of movements and then tries to do it himself. He simply uses the other skateboarder as a model and watches the trick, or he consciously goes to a skateboarder who’s up to it and ask if he can demonstrate and explain the trick. In both cases, the desire to learn comes from the "student" and not from the "teacher"! This is crucial for self-determined “deep learning” through intrinsic motivation.

For many, the fact that skateboarding also has a positive cognitive effect on children is new. In this context I like to quote Prof. Gerald Hüther: “Enthusiasm is fertilizer for the brain” and add: “Skateboarding is pure enthusiasm!” As a consequence, “Skateboarding is fertilizer for the brain!”

Many are amazed that skateboarding also teaches social skills, even though it’s not a team sport: How does a kid learn social skills? Here is just an example:
When a skateboarder sits alone at home and thinks intensively on his own impulse about how he has to behave so that the cool posse at the skate spot accepts him and he becomes part of this posse (group)… that develops social skills! Skateboarding can do so much because it’s self-determined exercised almost exclusively in open spaces without external guidelines from adults.

My favorite example:
What does a skateboarder learn when it yearns longingly in front of the wonderfully smooth granite flooring of the forecourt of a bank building? A forecourt with nice stairs, matching handrails, delicate walls, perfect banks and maybe even the right transition, that you can use as a ramp. Longingly, because a skate park cannot be built more perfectly and because a caretaker watches over this paradise. A caretaker, who gives everything to keep this space skateboarder-free to save the right angle of the stair nosing.

Just showing up there daily shows determination and willingness to perform. The daily search for ideas on how to outsmart or distract the caretaker has a high demand for creativity. Of course, this leads to firm will formation!
But that's not all. Because his goal is not to outsmart the caretaker, but to learn a self-determined trick variant at a self-determined point of the handrail or at least to land a skilful trick at a new obstacle. A skateboarder learns something very important for his future life. He learns to concentrate fully on his task and to ignore the caretaker. He learns to perform under extreme stress. This is only possible with focus.

Usually the caretaker comes around the corner and starts a huge discussion. But this doesn’t affect the skateboarder at all since he had already given self-responsible thought about the possible consequences and decided to bear them. Yes, it has something to do with suffering, steadfastness and consequences. Something learned that can be important later in life.

And there’s one thing the skateboarder not only learns here but already from day one: after the slam, it’s time to push away the pain, wiped away the blood, get up and keep trying the trick until it’s done! So here we have the rest of the lost properties completely in the learning process: bite, self-discipline, suffering, steadfastness and endurance. And without intrinsic motivation, none of this would work.
It’s no wonder that Yvonne Bemerburg defined the movement-oriented youth culture of skateboarding as a synthesis of motivation, creativity and firm willpower in her scientific research on the study of youth scenes at the University of Dortmund.

Skateboarding is pure self-determination and can do it all.

The skateboarder sets a goal for himself, e.g. the next trick he wants to learn. He exercises without outside influence until he has reached his goal. Reaching a self-set goal allows dopamine to be poured out in the skater's reward centre, which creates a feeling of happiness and positively changes the skateboarder's self-concept. Learning can be so easy, inspiring and effortless when it’s intrinsically motivated and self-determined.

Confucius must have been a skateboarder. Where else should this knowledge come from?!

• Tell me and I'll forget it

• Show me and I may keep it

• Let me do it and I will be able to do it

Meaning that intrinsically motivated practicing and trying out have the greatest learning effects.

And that's why skate-aid rightly claims:

"We empower kids!"