Comment by alterom

You might be interested to learn that bicycles initially didn't have pedals or a drivetrain[1].

They were ridden exactly the way you're teaching your kid. Adding pedals later is just following the history of bicycle tech development.

Velocipede, the French word for that vehicle, remained being the word for "bicycle" in several languages.

I guess if there's any moral to this, it's that learning history makes a lot of things far less surprising — and makes a lot of what we have today far more meaningful.

Or: one doesn't really understand something without knowing its history (and the best way to find gaps in your own understanding is to teach or explain the concept to someone else).

Using the metaphor of your post: to find out what are the "pedals" to take off, learn about how the "bicycle" came to be before explaining it to others.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dandy_horse