Member Spotlight: Bloomington teacher leads 1,700 mi bike ride with students
09/05/2014

  

Photo: A crowning moment for Farmer (above), at the top of the Newfound Gap in the Great Smoky Mountains, with his daughter, Sadie and fellow rider, Caleb Langley.

Paul Farmer, like so many Indiana teachers, would go the extra mile for his students. Yet this summer Farmer went 1,700 extra miles. He rode a bike from Key West, Florida—yes, the southernmost tip of the continental United States—to Bloomington. And he did it for students, with students and with his 16-year-old daughter.

 

Farmer’s ride was part of a youth leadership program called deCycles Indiana that started in Bloomington in 1968. Sixty riders, including teens, college students and young adults, took off in 90-plus degree heat some days for a challenging 23-day, cross-country cycling adventure. “The route changes every year and the cyclists share meals and spend nights in area schools, community centers and churches along the journey,” he said. I found it unbelievable that riding experience was not required.

 

Yet Farmer himself spent months training for the journey that pairs one adult and one college-age, experienced rider with each group of six middle school- or high school-age students. Forty of the student riders were from the Bloomington area but bikers from Ohio, Kentucky, Arizona, Michigan and Illinois rounded out the group.  

 

Farmer, who teaches physics, chemistry and AP biology, displays a dedication and passion for teaching and the bike expedition that equals his passion for unionism. This year he takes on the role as MCEA local president after serving as vice for 10 years. He told me that the trip was inspiring on a very personal level and he discovered things about himself, his fellow riders and even about the people he met in churches or towns along the way. His wife, Myra, a teacher at Tri North Middle School in Bloomington was one of the 20 volunteer backers and drove one of the support vehicles. She’s also an active MCEA member.

 

“It was a learning experience for all of us—me, my wife and my daughter,” he said. More than anything Farmer told me that the ride reinforced the same building blocks that he uses in his classroom. “So many times I hear my students say, ‘I can’t do this.’” Same from riders. “This trip was much like what I do when I teach. When you look at the big obstacle it’s hard, but when you break it down into little steps, my students—like the riders—find that they can take it step by step and succeed. And like union matters, they learn that others are there to help. Nobody does it alone whether it be in school, in the classroom or on a bike. I want to be there to help kids achieve their distant dreams and to be successful. I wanted those riders to be every bit as successful as I want my students to be and it’s a little gift to me to be able to help.”

 

When I asked Farmer if he would ride again he had a lengthy pause which made me think not. But he finally said, “If my daughter wants to do it again, I will.”

 

At the end of the day when we stepped out of his laboratory into the hall, the vibe ramped up as a flood of high schoolers streamed by. I asked him how many students were at Bloomington North. “About 1700,” he said. I couldn’t believe the irony—1700 students, 1700 miles. Then I asked him if he rode a mile for every one of those students. He grinned and said, “Well, I never thought about it that way, but maybe I did.”

 

To find out more about deCycles Indiana, go to: http://decyclesindiana.org.