A Higher Education

[cedartop]

A HIGHER EDUCATION  | MDTS - MDTS

Thoughts?

 

[Coach]

Seems like a great philosophy. It is not how most instructors get going, or for that matter most do not even get close to that level of preparation. Many clients also want a one stop hour class and be ready to go.

 

[obijohn]

Seems like a great philosophy. It is not how most instructors get going, or for that matter most do not even get close to that level of preparation. Many clients also want a one stop hour class and be ready to go.

I agree with the philosophy. Coach, among others, has the advantage of being a teacher and carries those skills over to his firearms training. Mike, I remember having a conversation with you regarding the pedagogy of adult learning.

 

[cedartop]

I agree with the philosophy. Coach, among others, has the advantage of being a teacher and carries those skills over to his firearms training. Mike, I remember having a conversation with you regarding the pedagogy of adult learning.

Yep. I have a lot of thoughts on this, and some of them have changed, when not at work I will have the time to throw some down.

 

[GNRPowdeR]

To become a national (or international) instructor, I can fully see where the foundation would be helpful. I'm also at work and need some time to put my thoughts down...

 

[Coach]

A lot of people are home from work. No comments here. I take that as disagreement. I expect disagreement with the theme laid down. Let's hear it INGO.

 

[Jackson]

Seems like a great philosophy. It is not how most instructors get going, or for that matter most do not even get close to that level of preparation.

A lot of people are home from work. No comments here. I take that as disagreement. I expect disagreement with the theme laid down. Let's hear it INGO.

I don't disagree. If you're putting yourself out there as a one-stop shop to teach people to "protect themselves, good or bad, win or lose" in all aspects of self-defense including what "happens before guns come out, the law, body alarm reaction, anatomy, physiology, communication, post-shooting", and presumably, based on where this guy comes from, contact distance problems whether armed or not, then a considerable amount of study and experience is required. If you're going to teach one-day basic marksmanship classes at the local range? Maybe 10 years of dedicated, full-time study and apprenticeship are not required. Maybe then a detailed understanding of the fundamentals of marksmanship, good gun handling skills, and an ability to clearly communicate are all that is needed. It depends entirely on your goals and what you're claiming you can provide your students. An instructor needs to know their limitations, understand what they don't know, and stay in their lane. This, I think, is where some may fail their students.

I have been taking a few classes a year for the past 9 years totaling hundreds of hours and covering all of the topics identified in the article. They were from both well-known and not-so-well-known instructors. Some were 4 hours, others were a week long. I practice some of them more than others. Sometimes weekly, sometimes not for months at a time, depending on my schedule. I guess this to be more education than many (even most?) who go out and become some kind of firearms instructor. Still, I do not feel qualified to be an instructor. There is more to being an instructor than taking a bunch of classes and soaking up a lot of other people's ideas. That is just one piece if the puzzle.

Many clients also want a one stop hour class and be ready to go.

One could say the clients just don't know what they don't know. On the other hand, most of the private citizen self-defense cases involve relatively un-trained people and a fairly good number of them prevail despite that lack of training. If the student comes to class expecting to find an answer to the full scope of potential self-defense issues.... Well that is impossible. One does not take history to learn physics. They shouldn't take a class on speed shooting to learn how to work with a partner, or a class on contact-distance encounters to learn the legal aspects of self-defense. There is no one class that will teach them everything. It should be a priority of any good instructor to at least acknowledge world of things NOT covered in a given class and leave students with an understanding where the class fits in the overall body of "self defense" knowledge.

It is another problem altogether that there is no generally accepted "body of knowledge" for things related to self defense. There are a few things I could point to as being common to most "Defensive Pistol" classes, but they aren't universal. When you get in to pre fight, post fight, legal issues, and basically any encounter that doesn't involve the application of traditional marksmanship at 5-25 yards, there seems to be much less consensus on what should be taught, to whom, and when. I would bet that most students attending their first "defensive pistol" class have no idea that there might be a difference. There is no "self defense 100" survey course to outline the potential areas of study for them. Even from a student perspective it takes several classes to outline that broad perspective. How an instructor could flesh that out and develop a basic, underlying philosophy from which to teach after one or two classes, an instructor cert, and no other applicable experience, I don't know.

 

[Coach]

I pointed out those wanting it all in a one stop session because that is not possible. Unrealistic expectation. Buying a gun is much easier than learning how to use it effectively.

 

[Jackson]

There are some people on this forum who would say all this stuff is BS and the only thing that needs to be learned is great gun handling and shooting skills. Training is a waste of money if you can do the shooting part really well.

 

[cedartop]

So Jackson stole a lot of what I was going to say. Go figure. Of course he and Coach know a lot about how I feel on this matter because we have talked about it. Jackson and I fairly extensively. If you were to go back, like Jackson just did and look at some of my older posts you will definitely see a difference in how I feel about a number of things. That is probably true of many of us who continue the journey for any length of time.

In a nutshell, there are some very bad instructors out there. I am seeing more of them all the time. Now I am not just talking about less than advanced instructors, I am talking about bad instructors. Like ignorant bad and safety bad. I am sure we have all seen some of the video's. Unfortunately there are a whole bunch of those people out there. The real problem with this is, most students don't know the difference, after all, if they already knew what to do they wouldn't be going to a class.

Break is over, more to follow....

 

[Jackson]

A lot of people are home from work. No comments here. I take that as disagreement. I expect disagreement with the theme laid down. Let's hear it INGO.

What are your thoughts? Are there parts you disagree with? What do you believe should be the minimum requirements for being an instructor?

 

[Coach]

What are your thoughts? Are there parts you disagree with? What do you believe should be the minimum requirements for being an instructor?

Does it really matter?

 

[Coach]

Everyone is walking on egg shells around this thread, and I suspect there is a reason for that. I don't think it matters what I think. I believe that the market place or what Adam Smith referred to as the invisible hand will eventually take care of those instructors that suck. I do wonder how much damage they do until the market place takes care of them.

GNR Powder used the term national or international upstream a bit. Let's just set that category aside. You don't just wander into that field, and if you do you won't stay there long if you don't deliver results.

Let's talk about the folks we see here on INGO, or those in the gun shops, or those with a shingle hanging out around the state. Let's talk about those people teaching gun safety, gun handling, basic function, basic marksmanship. Because you cannot throw a rock without hitting one of those people. Plus everyone has an uncle, father, brother or sister that is a cop, former military, NRA certified instructor, life long shooter, best hunter ever type in their life that can sprinkle a little pixie dust and wave the wand and teach them what they should know. Let's talk about the Basic firearms instructor. Or let me ask some questions about those people.

1) Should the person teaching basic firearms safety be able to instruct a group of people without sweeping themselves and other people in the class?
2) Should the person be able to recite the Four Rules of Firearms safety without looking at notes?
3) Should the person be able to say why any particular technique should be used or not used?
4) Should the reason in number 3 above be logical and make sense? (Self-evident)
5) Should the person be able to hit the target the students are expected to hit?
6) Should the person be a student of the the subject that they are teaching?
7) Should the person be a subject matter expert?
8) Should the person have their ego in check and not make up stuff to answer questions?
9) Should the person have some background in communication of facts, techniques and their expertise and experience?

 

[bwframe]

 

[rhino]

My opinion: it's generally easier and more effective for an effective teacher and communicator to learn subject matter than it is for a subject matter expert to learn to be an effective teacher and communicator.

Effective teachers and communicators are far less common at this time than subject matter experts.

And the twist (perhaps obvious to some, not to others): part of being an effective teacher and communicator is having a sufficient mastery of the pertinent subject matter, along the lines of Coach's list.

I just chicken and egged myself a little there.

 

[Coach]

I agree that good teachers are harder to find than subject matter experts. I also think there are more self proclaimed subject matter experts than really exist and I think fire arms training has more than its share. Way more.

I do not know why teaching is so difficult for so many people. I suspect that the fear of public speaking is a big part of it. Standing in front of a group and being judged completely and totally the entire time scares the hell out of some people I suppose. We gave the American Legion Test Americanism test to 400 plus juniors in high school this year. Some of the Legion guys were very intimidated by the high school kids. Combat vets telling me that they were scared of the kids struck me as strange but they seemed sincere about it. You cannot be effective if you are that uneasy with a group.

 

[2A_Tom]

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[cedartop]

Everyone is walking on egg shells around this thread, and I suspect there is a reason for that. I don't think it matters what I think. I believe that the market place or what Adam Smith referred to as the invisible hand will eventually take care of those instructors that suck. I do wonder how much damage they do until the market place takes care of them.

GNR Powder used the term national or international upstream a bit. Let's just set that category aside. You don't just wander into that field, and if you do you won't stay there long if you don't deliver results.

Let's talk about the folks we see here on INGO, or those in the gun shops, or those with a shingle hanging out around the state. Let's talk about those people teaching gun safety, gun handling, basic function, basic marksmanship. Because you cannot throw a rock without hitting one of those people. Plus everyone has an uncle, father, brother or sister that is a cop, former military, NRA certified instructor, life long shooter, best hunter ever type in their life that can sprinkle a little pixie dust and wave the wand and teach them what they should know. Let's talk about the Basic firearms instructor. Or let me ask some questions about those people.

1) Should the person teaching basic firearms safety be able to instruct a group of people without sweeping themselves and other people in the class?
2) Should the person be able to recite the Four Rules of Firearms safety without looking at notes?
3) Should the person be able to say why any particular technique should be used or not used?
4) Should the reason in number 3 above be logical and make sense? (Self-evident)
5) Should the person be able to hit the target the students are expected to hit?
6) Should the person be a student of the the subject that they are teaching?
7) Should the person be a subject matter expert?
8) Should the person have their ego in check and not make up stuff to answer questions?
9) Should the person have some background in communication of facts, techniques and their expertise and experience?

Another one I have been thinking about lately. Does your instructor have liability insurance? That is one of those things that doesn't prove whether or not he or she is a good instructor, but it does indicate to me whether or not they take it seriously.

 

[turnandshoot4]

I'll take a stab at this.

1) Should the person teaching basic firearms safety be able to instruct a group of people without sweeping themselves and other people in the class? Yes.
2) Should the person be able to recite the Four Rules of Firearms safety without looking at notes? Yes.
3) Should the person be able to say why any particular technique should be used or not used? Yes, however unless the technique is unsafe I'm willing to give it a try. The more I learn and teach others the more I find out that my way, or Pat Mac's way, or Travis Haley's way isn't better, just different. Most often a certain technique is good in a certain scenario but not another. (Ground fighting vs one guy or ground fighting against 3 guys)
4) Should the reason in number 3 above be logical and make sense? (Self-evident) After explanation, yes. No one should have to take a "logical leap" to understand a technique. My BS detector goes up anytime someone uses the phrases, "The idea is" or "I would just"
5) Should the person be able to hit the target the students are expected to hit? Sure. A quick question, however. Let's step out of the shooting world and into the world of sports. Should the basketball coach be able to hit that free throw or 3 point shot? Are they less of a coach if they can't? Are coaches judged by their ability to shoot or their players? Not making a statement here, looking for thoughts on this.
6) Should the person be a student of the the subject that they are teaching? They should.
7) Should the person be a subject matter expert? No. William Aprill put it well to someone who said they didn't feel qualified to teach someone new to firearms. To paraphrase him, "To the new gun owner you are seal team 6. They don't know anything and have plenty of experience to teach them."
8) Should the person have their ego in check and not make up stuff to answer questions? This is more of a moral code question. Yes, instructors should have a moral code. Instructors should be willing to say I don't know (See question 3, 7)
9) Should the person have some background in communication of facts, techniques and their expertise and experience? It certainly would help.

 

[MarkC]

I agree that good teachers are harder to find than subject matter experts. I also think there are more self proclaimed subject matter experts than really exist and I think fire arms training has more than its share. Way more.

I do not know why teaching is so difficult for so many people. I suspect that the fear of public speaking is a big part of it. Standing in front of a group and being judged completely and totally the entire time scares the hell out of some people I suppose. We gave the American Legion Test Americanism test to 400 plus juniors in high school this year. Some of the Legion guys were very intimidated by the high school kids. Combat vets telling me that they were scared of the kids struck me as strange but they seemed sincere about it. You cannot be effective if you are that uneasy with a group.

I particularly agree with Coach's delineating the difference between a subject matter expert and someone who can instruct. I have extensive experience as a law enforcement instructor, but it took me a long time before I got comfortable standing in front of a class of 100 students and delivering instruction. (Or, blathering like an idiot. Depends on who you ask.) It is intimidating, and fortunately I was able to start with small, friendly groups of students before I got to the big leagues.

However, the cardinal rule: STAY IN YOUR LANE. As aptly demonstrated last night at the match, I might be able to speak at length effectively with good slides and quality handouts on some subjects, but I have no business trying to teach anyone how to shoot. Or, anything else that requires coordination.