Grandville — Like many of her classmates at Central Elementary, Andi Marshall says that her schoolwork can sometimes be stressful as she works to learn new things. When that stress hits, though, she’s found a good way to relieve some of the pressure:
“If you need a break or something, you can just get on a bike,” the fourth-grader explained. “Like, if you’re really stressed about what you’re working on, you can ride the bike and maybe lose those thoughts about what you’re doing, and it gets a lot of energy out.”
But Andi and her classmates don’t have to wait until after school to hop on a bike and get that energy out. In the back corner of fourth-grade teacher Kelly Venhuizen’s classroom are two stationary bicycles, ready to serve in whatever way her students need.
“You’re actually riding a real bike, and you’re having fun doing it, but you’re also in school,” Andi said. “You’re in (school) for, like, eight or more hours, which can be kind of hard. So I think (the bikes are) a really cool thing to have in the classroom.”
Venhuizen added the stationary bikes to her classroom last year, thanks to a grant from the Grandville Education Foundation. A recreational cyclist herself, she said she had always wanted to give her students more opportunities to be active during the school day.
“They work very hard all day; there’s a lot of curriculum to get through and they do a lot of sitting,” she said. “We don’t just have the freedom to go out for recess anytime and work it off, but I felt like having a little bit of exercise like this would help get out some of that energy, help them get back to work and let them focus.”
The bikes are available for use throughout the day during independent work periods, snack time and basically any time Venhuizen is not actively teaching. She draws names, two at a time, to offer the opportunity to have five minutes on a bike; when those minutes are up, two more names get picked. And if a student isn’t interested or doesn’t need the bike when their name is picked, there’s no pressure to ride.
Some students eat their snack while riding; others strike up a (quiet) conversation with their fellow rider. There’s a book mount attached to each bike, so some use the time to read — either for fun or for an assignment — while they’re pedaling.
Fourth-grader Jethro VanKlompenberg said he sometimes likes to “race” his riding partner:
“You can choose how hard the pedals go around, so you can set (the resistance) to be really hard or you can be able to pedal really fast,” Jethro said. “If your brain is, like, worked up with schoolwork, it’s pretty fun to go really fast and get your legs really loose, and just have a break to do that.”
Venhuizen said she’s enjoyed watching how quickly her students have gotten used to the bicycles and embraced the opportunity for a brain break. If she gets busy and forgets to draw names, they’ll remind her to get back on track.
The quiet whir of the wheels from the back corner, she says, has become a key piece of the fourth-grade school experience.
“I’ve had a few times where I could tell (a student) needed a break, and so I would pull their (name) ‘magically’ again so that they could have another ride, and almost always it will help them refocus. So that’s how I know it’s working,” the teacher said. “It’s been awesome to see how much they love it.”
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