Jacob Lindsay: A teacher’s job is to become obsolete

This. This. This.
From Jacob Lindsay of Soja Mind / Body:
On the first day of class I share a slide that says “A teacher’s job is to become obsolete.” I really believe this. I see some teachers who are extremely skilled at what they do, but who have never raised a student to their same level of skill. Why? I believe it has a lot to do with the relationship they set up with their students. Namely, a hierarchical relationship with the student will always keep the student reliant on the teacher, and one cannot achieve mastery while being reliant on another. As a teacher, I see my primary duty as manipulating the environment of the classroom so that each student has the best chance of succeeding on their own. That of course is an enormous task, because each student’s ideal learning environment is different. But there you go. That’s why it’s a job. I was thinking about this right now because one of my recent graduates just got hired on as my new co-worker. The truth is, she was a strong candidate to begin with, and my job as a teacher was primarily to get out of her way while she succeeded on her own. I think “getting out of the way of your student’s success” is one of the most important lessons to learn as a teacher. It feels like you’ve done nothing, but that’s the point. They did it.

Jacob Lindsay: Obstacles to Following Directions

From Jacob Lindsay of Soja Mind / Body:

The number one lesson I have learned as a teacher (and a parent!), is that, given clear directions, students will generally not follow them (or will selectively follow only parts). If teaching (and parenting) was simply about giving clear and accurate directions towards a positive outcome, things would be much easier.

As I consider this it, of course, brings to mind all the times that I, given clear directions towards a positive outcome, failed to follow those directions. And what were the reasons?

1) Lack of awareness/understanding: I thought I was doing the thing, but I wasn’t, either because I didn’t really have an experience of doing the thing in the first place, and/or because I was adding something else that didn’t belong there.

2) Fear of failure/embarrassment: I didn’t want to give up the thing I was already doing, and/or I was afraid of failing at the new thing (and possibly embarrassing myself in the process).

3) Other social pressures: I felt a strong social pressure (real or imagined) to not follow the directions and/or do something else.

4) Denial of the process: I didn’t actually believe the thing would work.

5) Denial of the outcome: I didn’t actually believe I would like the outcome.

Hmmm…maybe more. So…where does that leave us?

Popular instructor insurer Lockton will no longer sell NRA-endorsed policies

Lockton was a popular insurance provider for shooting instructors through their partnership with the NRA. Lockton tweeted that that has ended:

Additional coverage from Reuters and Insurance Business America.

Other instructor insurance providers are listed in our member resource section.

AAR: Shooting Performance Instructor Development, by Jason Crotteau of Wyoming Tactical

From Jason Crotteau of Wyoming Tactical:

Shooting Performance F.I.D.C.
Las Cruses, NM
Dec. 4-8 [2017]

I have been teaching defensive firearms, and running my small company for a couple of years now, being both NRA certified, and a Combat Focus Shooting instructor, I know that I had the background, and in the case of CFS had been put through the grinder to get signed off. In my mind however, passing the test, and simply being “good enough” doesn’t cut it when it come to educating people in life and death skills. So I was looking for something more. This is when I came across Firearms Instructor Development Course (F.I.D.C.) taught by Mike Seeklander of Shooting Performance.

I had met Mike previously through mutual friends, and after talking with him, he was gracious enough to grant me a slot in a very difficult to attend class. Mike also had another instructor with him, Rich Brown, who had some incredible insights on public speaking and presentation. Rich is also an accomplished shooter in his own right. Using his critiques I was able to gain valuable insights into my own teaching style, and how to maximise my impact with students.

When I arrived on day one I understood why this course was so difficult to get into. I was one of fourteen other instructors, eleven of which were high level officers, and instructors for the Las Cruses Police Department and the Doña Ana County Sheriff’s Department. Half of these guys were SWAT officers, and one was a Grand Master level shooter. To say that I was intimidated would be sugar coating it.

I was absolutely determined to get everything out of this course that I could, so I put all of my focus into absorbing all the knowledge that was being thrown at us. I had heard the “drinking from the firehose” analogy before, and this class was no different. Just the focus was slightly different. This course wasn’t about teaching a specific program or method. It was primarily about HOW we teach. I would say that about sixty percent of the curriculum was about communication, and how to convey information to students. While we worked on our communication skills we were shown different methods for running students on a range, we talked about some of the factors that go into skill development, and learned a few tricks along the way.

A couple of takeaways for me were the structure templates that this course provided. Both in terms of how to develop a curriculum, and how to structure it into a understandable flow. This was of huge importance to me, as I have reached a point in my career where I am beginning to develop my own curriculum. The examples, and structures that we learned made this seemingly gargantuan task seem much more manageable. Secondly, we were shown a few different ways of running the line on the range. One of the best ways was making the line automatic. Giving the student a task and let them do the reps. As an instructor, this style gives you more freedom to watch for safety concerns, as well as more opportunities to coach students.

One of the biggest things that I left with is learning to teach, without a doctrine. Walking out with solutions for the problems that I have encountered as my training courses have grown. I remember doing a survey before Instructor Conference in September, and something that I listed as a weakness as an instructor was not dividing up my curriculum into small bite, or block. Something I could just pull out on demand.

Overall, the lessons on effective communication, especially as it relates to firearms training made a world of difference. It will make a big difference to the students as well.

Scott Park Phillips: Most Applications are Just Stage Combat

Scott Park Phillips of North Star Martial Arts:

I teach applications. Applications are all about capturing a feeling. A feeling of moving through space, of getting a hold, of clearing, catching, spinning, or tipping. The point of an application is to get a feeling, and then find that feeling again spontaneously in some kind of rough-housing game.

The chances of getting an application from a video are very small. Applications in a video are a type of stage combat designed to recruit students. If you can see it without slow-motion it is usually an illusion. And even if a video uses the slow-motion effect, you can’t feel it. And applications are all about feeling…

Continue reading…

WeaponsMan: When Force-on-Force Training Goes Wrong

From WeaponsMan:

If you’re not paranoid about a training gun that looks and feels like your service firearm, if you’re not constantly checking and double-checking, and if you’re not still observing the three most fundamental rules even when you know the training aid can’t possibly hurt anybody, well, then the difference between your situation and the much less enviable one in which Lee Coel finds himself is not dependent on anything but happenstance, chance, fortune… luck…

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h/t Grant Cunningham of the Personal Security Institute