We can’t mind read and so we need to find out what our
pupils are thinking as they drive. Some
will naturally talk as they drive, some will do if you ask them to, and some
will find that a real struggle. Whether
you call it a skill to be able to talk as you think is not important to me,
what is important however is knowing what your pupil is thinking.
In the early days we tend to just tell them what to do, and
generally speaking if you are clear and you give them time, they will do
exactly that. But after a while, the
speed of the vehicle tends to overtake the speed of the thought processes. This is a crucial phase. There is an ability to physically drive, but
sometimes the brain gets a little hung up on the sequence or priority of
actions. No problem, you know the
consequences of the problem, you know why it’s occurring and now you just have
to sort out preventing it from recurring.
As you can see from the above, people are unique, they vary
in their ability to multi-task, they vary in their ability to communicate, they
vary in their ability to assess and they vary in their ability to decide. We are all different. It is a fact.
When a Parent rings up and asks how long it will take to teach their
Son/Daughter how to drive, they are not considering these factors.
So what is needed is an ability to root cause why something
is occurring.
Only by understanding why
a driving fault is happening will you stand any chance of dealing with it. Many Instructors bypass this process, and
what they emphasise is the need to control the action, or prompt it. But the real key is understanding, properly
understanding why the necessary action is not occurring.
As Driving Instructors you can tell someone why an action is needed
until you are blue in the face, but unless they personally connect with that,
until they actually buy into what you say, you are literally wasting your
time.
In effect, this concept of explain and prompt is nothing
more than drip feeding a robotic sequence of events. “I must do these mirrors now because if I don’t
my Instructor will pull me over and bore me to tears about the need to do
mirrors in this particular order/timing”.
That is not learning, that is simply learning by repetition and in
effect forced learning. There is no
connection in that type of learning, it is weak, superficial and more to the
point dangerous. Dangerous because you
can be sure that as soon as your Pupil obtains their pass, they will be
dropping those stupid, pathetic actions immediately.
If you are simply interested in forcing your Pupil to follow
a sequence of actions in order to pass a test, then you are dumbing down
learning. This is not learning times
tables, or constructing a sentence in a different language, this is learning a
life skill that requires an ability to APPLY the theory in any unique
situation. The more diverse the area
surrounding a Test Centre the more unique situations crop up and the more often
the least prepared pupils will suffer.
This approach does fly in the face of fashion of
course. These days, everyone, generally
speaking, wants to achieve everything the day before yesterday. As such, intensive courses are becoming
increasingly popular. But it is generally wise to pause, take stock
and evaluate how appropriate this kind of rate of learning suits an individual’s
learning patterns. Some people do
naturally have an ability to appreciate/respond to guidance when learning a new
skill and some people need time to do that.
It is quite frankly bonkers to ignore this fact when considering how a
person wants to learn to drive.
I believe that more emphasis needs to be placed on
how each individual Pupils like to learn to drive, than on any generic learning
technique. You ask any decent Chef how
they cook a dish, or any golfer how they strike a ball, or any musician how
they play a piece of music – you will quickly realise people visualise,
explain, and do things in completely different ways, what they do not like is monotonous, standardised teaching methods.
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