I Made a Bet With My Students That I Could Do a Backflip

Never make a bet with middle schoolers unless you are fully prepared for them to remember every word.

At some point during the school year, a couple of my students were talking about doing backflips. I offhandedly said, “I think I could do that.”

For context, I had done pretty well at limbo during the school dance, so I guess my confidence was higher than it should have been.

They immediately told me they didn’t think I could do it.

And instead of walking away like a reasonable adult, I said, “Maybe we can make a bet on it.”

This was my middle school typing class. At the beginning of the year, I had them take a typing test and recorded all of their scores. I was planning to test them again at the end of the year just to see how much they had improved.

So I figured we could turn it into a goal.

If they could collectively double their typing speed as a class, I would do a backflip.

I should have set the bar higher.

To be fair, most of them had already made real progress. Probably 80% of the class was already close before I ever put the backflip on the table. But once there was a ridiculous promise attached to the goal, the whole thing changed.

Typing practice went from something they were supposed to do to something they were chasing.

Every day, someone would ask:

“Hey Mr. Austin, can you do it yet?”
“Have you been practicing?”
“Are you actually going to do it?”

The funny part is that they started tracking my progress almost as closely as I was tracking theirs.

I actually found a gymnastics coach to help me train. A friend of mine had a connection, and when I told the students I was getting coached, they lost it.

I also decided to record myself throughout the process. As embarrassing as it was, I knew the kids would love it.

At one point, I was jumping backward onto my bed, trying to convince myself this was a normal thing for an adult teacher to be doing.

Then I went to a trampoline park and landed on my neck a few times trying to figure out the rotation. My neck was sore for about two weeks after that, and this was still the “cheater” version of a backflip.

By the final week, it had become a whole thing.

Kids who were close to their typing goals were locked in. Other students were hyping them up. Students from completely different classes were stopping me in the hallway asking if I had done the backflip yet.

That was the part I did not expect.

It was not just my class anymore. It had turned into this small shared story that everyone wanted to see through.

And then the day came.

I had recorded the whole process: practicing on my bed, at a park, at the trampoline park, and narrating parts of it along the way. I made a 10-minute vlog because I figured they would enjoy seeing the full journey.

I did not end up landing a full standing backflip on the ground. That was much harder than I thought it would be.

But I did land one on a trampoline, and honestly, I think it was pretty good.

When I got to school that day, the students were already asking about it.

“Did you do it?”
“Did you land it?”
“Are we going to see it?”

The problem was that typing was my last class of the day, so I had to play dumb for hours and pretend I didn’t know what they were talking about.

When I finally got to that class, I showed them the video.

They thought it was hilarious.

They kept asking me to replay the parts where I flipped onto my bed or landed on my neck. I had uploaded the video to YouTube just so I could show it to them easily. I only showed it to one class, didn’t tell anyone else, and within a week it had over 100 views.

I still don’t know who they shared it with.

Even though it was not the full backflip I had promised, I had genuinely tried my best, and the kids could tell. I think that was part of why they enjoyed it so much.

They got to watch me struggle, practice, look ridiculous, and still show up.

The whole point was to get them to try their best. But I think it worked because I had to try too.

I was not just standing in front of the room telling them to work harder. I had a goal on the line too. They were working toward something, and so was I.

That kind of motivation is hard to fake.

After the day was over, the thing I kept thinking about was not really the backflip.

It was the hallway.

It was kids asking about each other’s goals. It was students rooting for classmates they barely knew. It was the fact that a typing challenge had somehow turned into a shared moment that made the whole class feel more alive.

Typing matters. They genuinely improved, and I am proud of that.

But what stuck with me most was the relationship piece.

Students respond when progress feels real, when the goal feels shared, and when the adult in the room is willing to put something on the line too.

I think about that a lot while building Asobo.

Software cannot replace that kind of trust. A dashboard cannot recreate the energy of a class that has built a real shared story together. But I do think technology can help create the conditions for more of those moments.

It can help students see progress that might otherwise feel invisible. It can help teachers notice who is stuck, who is coasting, and who is quietly close to a breakthrough.

The goal should not be to replace the human parts of learning.

The goal should be to protect them.

Because the thing students remembered was not just that they got faster at typing.

They remembered that their teacher made a promise, worked for it, looked ridiculous, landed on his neck a few times, and still followed through.

That matters.

Now, of course, they are saying I need to do a full backflip next time and that I should take the summer to practice.

So apparently this story is not over.

Sometimes learning starts with a goal.

Sometimes it starts with a bet.

And sometimes, apparently, it starts with landing on your neck at a trampoline park.

Best,

Austin Ketola