Got it. Either it's YOU approved, or it's shit. And anyone but you has no business commenting. Why, pray tell, are you continuing to post these click-bait titled threads then arguing with everyone?Originally Posted by KEW8338
Cue Raylan...
Got it. Either it's YOU approved, or it's shit. And anyone but you has no business commenting. Why, pray tell, are you continuing to post these click-bait titled threads then arguing with everyone?
Cue Raylan...
Didn't Craig say in the other thread (pieing) that this guy has tactical acumen but questionable social skills?
Dunno. Quit reading that one too...
Most students don’t know what quality training looks like, and lack the exposure necessary, let alone the skills to make an informed decision on the topic.
If an individual attends training and feels like they got something out of it, or improved in a certain skill area, they are likely to believe it was quality training. Others don’t feel it was “quality” unless the round count cost them three months of take home pay, or they were doing Hondo rolls every third course of fire.
Unless you are a professional student, with the requisite TTP validation of using what you learned in training during practical application, how would you know if the training you have received was “quality” or not? Without validating the TTPs taught in the environment for which they were designed to be used, your opinion of “quality” is just your opinion. And not an informed opinion at that.
You can get much more of what you want with a kind word and a gun, than with a kind word alone.
As an aside, the phenomenon currently under discussion (twin issues of shoddy instruction and the students’ inexperience and inability to discern quality) is probably more rampant in academia than the shooting industry. There is a lot of blind leading blind going on—in case anyone was wondering how we got where we are as a nation.
I know that may seem like the biggest OT drift ever, but it’s pertinent in that we are addressing the human condition in this thread. At least in the shooting community, there’s some immediate objective feedback from the targets, or the dude at the other end of a sim gun.
Anyhoo, carry on...
”But in the end all of these ideas just manufacture new criminals when the problem isn't a lack of criminals.” -JRB
To continue the drift, Totem - you know as well as I that graduate programs do not offer instruction in teaching. PhD programs in general train you to be researchers at R1 schools. If you mention you like to teach, you are shunned. Now most jobs are at teaching intensive institutions and the new PhD is ill prepared for them. Most university profs will try to lower their teaching load and avoid teaching. The classic joke is that the reward for the best teacher of the year is a year off from teaching.
About the thread - some folks were suckered. What else is new in this world. I've gotten something out of most classes, I can count on one really crappy teacher who dialed it in. Told the host and he hasn't be back. I only do an Internet review if I really like someone.
I can tell if an instructor has their act together, having been a teacher for a zillion years - and won awards at three institutions. BTW, if one posts such a rant - I think you need to post your creds explicitly.
So much to say….
First, in answer to the OP’s question, YES. I can identify good training. Since he seems to mostly be coming from the teaching/organizational/logistical end of this discussion, I will provide some examples.
Tom Givens—no wasted time in his classes, reads the class well (abilities, fatigue, etc.), doesn’t suffer fools but also has fun. Actually checks weather forecasts and adjusts class time accordingly. Probably the best I’ve trained with in terms of organization, stair-stepped training progression, etc.
Kyle Defoor—not a guy I’d necessarily rush back to train with, but the two day pistol class I took with him was, in hindsight, pretty good in these aspects. He had us alternate shooting at distance with doing things up close so as not to overly fatigue our eyes, changed our start time on Day Two to account for the sun rising over the cliff face that was our backstop, jumped all over people for safety violations, etc.
Paul Howe—Very well plotted out POI, handouts/CD-ROMS (now thumb drives) provided with course content, reads the class well, stays on top of brewing weather situations very well and adjusts accordingly, actually runs through his entire classes live on his own to determine time/round counts/etc.
These are but three examples of instructors who had their shit together when I did classes with them (multiple, in the cases of Givens and Howe). I could name many others who do a fine job as well (Joe Weyer, Bill Rapier, Will Petty, Craig Douglas, etc.). I tend to do my homework picking who to train with, so unless I get them on a bad day, I am usually pleased with my choices.
Some of the traveling trainers are at the mercy of the venues and their hosts, so this is where doing their own homework prior to arrival is key. Some have done a less than stellar job of making sure everything they needed was there, or that the range could support the types of drills they wanted to run. So do I blame the host or the instructor? Or both? Not sure. On one occasion a course description did not quite match what was taught, but that was because of the old Alias Training hub thing and seemingly not the instructor’s fault. It wasn’t a dramatic difference (wasn’t like shoot house vs. vehicle or something like that), but noticeable.
As for my qualifications to judge, in addition to now having eclipsed 700 hours of training on my own, I also hold a M.S. in Education from The Johns Hopkins University and practice teaching every work day (including summers!) in my now 20+ year career teaching. How many of the firearms instructors out there have taken a single education class, let alone have a degree in such? I do wonder. Not that it should be necessary, but it also probably wouldn’t hurt. Regardless, I can usually tell when an instructor has done his or her homework or is just mailing it in, so to speak.
Academic "leaders": We need to be able to provide a quantifiable account of the work our professors do, because anything that can't be quantified is not real. How can we do this?
Other academic "leaders": Well, this may be a crazy idea, but I'm just throwing it out there. Let's make all evidence of "teaching effectiveness" flow out of little fill-in-the-circle surveys of the students.
Academic "leaders": Huh, so, like, we could actually differentiate between the really good professors who average 4.1 or higher, and the middling professors who average in between 3.1 and 4, and the bad professors who score 3 and less? And it would all be clear and black and white?
Other academic "leaders": Uh, yeah, I mean, it was just a thought, I know it doesn't necessarily make a ton of sense to rest it all on the students, since they don't actually know jack and obviously can't give meaningful evaluations in certain senses, and might be spiteful or whatever, and anyway what the heck are these numbers supposed to actually represent...
Academic "leaders": ...It's brilliant. We're going with it!
O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts, And men have lost their reason.
That's all fine and dandy, but I do lean strongly towards standing by my speculation that if you're getting half of your classes for free due to these AAR's, you have unreasonably high expectations. Still an observation worth what you paid for it. I only made the observation in the first place because you represented yourself as open to input. I saw the part of your response to someone else where you speculated that the rest of us are just content with mediocrity. Yep, or you're not content with reality. Could be either, right?
It kind of sounds to me like you've come to a place where you have a vision of what training ought to be like, objectively speaking, and you recognize that it's not available as such out there. So the obvious move is to start offering training, and raise the standard of professionalism out there.
O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts, And men have lost their reason.
I never thought of it that way. I'd have to say calling them academic leaders is an exceptional idea to instill responsibility.........
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