It's cool being so much older than everyone else at the local skate park because there's no pressure on me at all. I have no dreams of being sponsored, so it's easy for me to laugh at myself if things don't go well. When I wrote the proposal, I tried to explain what I would teach, not necessarily how I would teach it. The program isn't really centered around skating, but it's definitely an undercurrent. I use skateboarding as an example of how people create companies which create products and to sell products they need to use artistic skills to create logos, magazine ads, package designs, t- shirts, etc.
Skateboard companies use commercial artists every step of the way, so it works well.
What about the prominence of skateboarding in the curriculum. The kids who skate are fully into it. The kids who don't skate get curious and are at least accepting of it because of the examples we're working with. I try not to shove it down the non-skaters' throats, but quite a few have been assimilated into the skater ranks. Even the ones who've never stepped on a board now carry around Tech Decks.