Being prepared to change

As a relative newcomer to the driving education industry I am keen to learn.  Part of the process of learning is to reflect.  It’s vitally important to take time to step back, and consider how things are going.  It’s perfectly natural as far as I can see.  In almost every other thing we all do, we at some stage find time to reflect on how we do it; can it be done with more efficiency, or less effort, or more enjoyment or less risk.

So what do we do?  You might say we get people to pass their test, or you might say we train people, or you might say we enable people to learn in a safe environment.  Your function as you see it might be to dictate where a learner looks at a specific time, or to make a PDI say a certain sentence or question in a given circumstance.  On the other hand, your stance may be that you see your role as a facilitator to learning, the method or content is not such a big deal for you, you are more interested in allowing any kind of learning to flourish. 

What we do and how we go about it is personal.  There is not necessarily a right or wrong way, as long as you are achieving the end goal for your customer, earning a living and perhaps having fun along the way, then you could argue that it’s really not that important HOW we go about our work.

“Well, you know, it’s always been that way in the 30 years I’ve been in the business, and I can’t see it changing much anytime soon”.  I’ve been in 3 distinctly different careers in my time so far, and in each one, I have seen many people saying that.  These are the same people that count down the payslips until they retire.

However, right now, we are in need of some pretty fundamental change as far as I can see.  I say that because our society appears to be demanding everything, yesterday.  There appears to be a need to have everything ‘to the max’ as soon as possible.  This is all well and good if it were sustainable, but it simply isn’t.  Whether it be building careers, homes, or families, you have to be willing and prepared to take the long view.  Our society doesn’t like considering the long view, we all want instant results....NOW!  Under normal circumstances, this may not present much of a problem, but things are far from normal.   The housing market is way overpriced, banks have been forgetting their purpose in life, youth unemployment is steadily increasing, worldwide, and on it goes.  These circumstances mean that instant results are harder to come by.  Many very well educated souls are struggling to find work that values their academic qualifications gained.  The less well educated are a step further back.    

I believe education is fundamental to this situation.  The education system that was designed at it’s birth is an entirely different education system that is needed now.  What is needed right now is to stimulate ‘life’.   If you don’t nourish and stimulate a living thing, it wilts, it loses the will to exist.   By ‘life’ what I mean is energy, fight, courage, innovation, change, stamina, persistence, dare I say it, self-learning. 

You need look no further than the driving education industry for evidence of this.  The ability to drive, to be mobile is a wonderful skill.  It changes lives.  It dramatically enhances the lives of people in many ways.  We have millions of young people who cannot drive, they cannot finance learning to drive, and they don’t even really want to learn to drive.  Even if they could drive, they cannot afford to pay for the insurance.  It is a sad thing to witness this lack of hope.  Let’s not forget that these are the very people that are in the prime of their life, they are the fittest they are going to be, these are the people that are big cogs in the economy of this country, and they are to a large degree DISENGAGED.

Their education in schools needs to be more meaningful to them.  Not just meaningful in the academic sense, but meaningful in the valued sense.  They need to feel equipped to deal with the ever changing world.  More importantly perhaps is that whatever they learn at school has got to be stimulating, give them hope, offer them skills that are far beyond the conventional approach of Maths, English etc.  The result needs to produce youngsters who are passionate in any given subject, they will go on to be creative in their field come what may, they feel they can adapt however it is needed.  The education system needs to open up the opportunity for a pupil to discover the subject that makes their heart beat faster.

In the above context I then look at the industry that I am personally involved.  I reflect on what we do as professionals and the signs are also not good.  I certainly see myself needing to develop further to make my training more meaningful to my customers.  I also believe that we all need to consider not just how we encourage learning, but in much the same way as I suggest with the schools above, the actual content of the learning needs to be more meaningful, relevant and inspiring.  Ultimately, as an industry, we need to treat people as individuals and not ‘candidates’. 

I leave you with this sad tale.  Last year I taught a wonderful young couple how to drive.  They could not have been more different in their needs.  The male was confident, assured, assertive, precise, and motivated.  The female was nervous, hesitant, fearful, timid and motivated.  He took 2 attempts to pass, she passed first time.  She has not driven since, cannot afford the insurance.  How sad is that?  A wonderful young couple, they had a very young one when they were training with me, and when I bumped into them last week she was expecting her 2^nd on that same day.  Imagine how her life (and the young ones lives) would be transformed if she were able to pay the insurance to drive.

All of us ignore this current situation at our peril..... it will bite our behinds in years to come.