‘Vulnerable’ youngsters restore classic bike to form museum centrepiece

[Bob]

A team of ten Scottish youngsters, described as being "disengaged" from mainstream education and "at risk" in their communities, have restored a 1920 Triumph Junior motorcycle – which is now forming the centrepiece of an exhibition at the Museum of Scotland.

They also created a display about the motorcycle industry collected from interviews, archives, magazines and collections.

A museum spokesman said: "Wheels of Time offers National Museums of Scotland the opportunity to engage with young people who might not normally view museums as places to visit."

The exhibition is on display to September 26.

[jazbug5]

Hey, was it with these guys?

I met them at the BMF this summer- brilliant crew, and a fantastic idea too. I got the school I was working at to look into working with them, and will be volunteering with the project if it goes ahead.

Do you guys think this could work in NZ?

[Bend-it]

Great! Putting your back into something you can ultimately be proud of builds character, even if you're initially forced into it!

[xwhatsit]

Here's a pic of one. Cool, no? Check out that chain and rear sprocket! I suppose the heavy-duty chain is to cope with the awesome power produced

[tri boy]

Here's a pic of one. Cool, no? Check out that chain and rear sprocket! I suppose the heavy-duty chain is to cope with the awesome power produced

I think you'll find that its a leather belt drive on a rim type groove.

[jonbuoy]

Education systems write off a lot of kids that have talents other than academic ones. Half the time the kids don't realise they have a hidden talent. Get told enough times that your a fuckwit and you'll start to believe it.

[SHELRACING]

Its good to see kids that are 'not academic' being catered for.
My nephew, who lives in NZ, is just like this. Give him a motorbike engine or a beaten up bike and he's happy for a very long time.
He hates school and struggles with it daily.He's only 15.
Fortunatley he has a school and parents that understand this and he attends school for 3 days per week(with a push). Two days doing class work and one day at the local ag/farm teaching center.Two other days are spent at the local small motors shop where he is an apprentice.
Given the opportunity, school would get the shove in favour of the workshop.
He tries hard and thats all we ask of him.

[Mr. Peanut]

Education systems write off a lot of kids that have talents other than academic ones. Half the time the kids don't realise they have a hidden talent. Get told enough times that your a fuckwit and you'll start to believe it.

Agreed!

Not everyone is smart, just like not everyone is tall or short, black or white.

Yet somehow it is still socially acceptable to make someone feel less of themselves because they weren't born intelligent

[jazbug5]

One of the kids I worked with when an assistant teacher was labelled as being of low ability; he was disruptive- mainly because he felt he was seen as stupid, and he found academic work boring and difficult.
When he found out I had a bike, though- he got really excited and always wanted to talk about it. One day I mentioned that I was having some mechanical difficulties; he asked for details, and would you believe that he immediately had an excellent diagnosis of what could be causing them, and how to fix it?
I wrote to his form teacher to tell her as I knew there were programmes like the above one that could really benefit him- or at least the school could have sorted him out with some kind of apprenticeship at weekends to keep him from getting into trouble, but did anything happen? Nah.
There should be a little more value given to these types of intelligence, as the low self esteem that makes a child like this so disruptive could be so easily avoided. This kid could, with encouragement, become a top engineer, or at least he could aim to- instead he could well end up in jail.
Grrr.