Skateboarding and climbing are sports where you assume that you will probably fail more than you will succeed–at least in the beginning. And if you’re really ambitious, that failure rate will become a constant because you’ll want to push yourself to skate faster and climb higher. I must have flown off my board 3-4 times this weekend. Each instance though I learned how to ride with greater confidence and I learned how to fall without injury. In Education, we tend to want to teach to success and rarely discuss failure. There’s so much to be learned in that space of losing control, flying off the board, and determining how to position your body to hit the pavement. It’s that lesson that helps one get back up, reassess, and ride again.
JACQUELINE P. ASHBY 