Driving Instructor Training Hitting The Target

www.drivinginstructortraining.bigtom.org.uk

Hello I want to do a video that is aimed for trainee driving instructors as well as already established driving instructors.  It is demonstrating how BIG TOM can assist you in the driving instructor foundation blocks in making sure you hit the target in a training environment.  It is do with a few incidents that happened yesterday.  I don't know which location you are from but we had an appalling day yesterday here in terms of road safety, the A1 in Grantham and other places like the A15 and it all the time it focusses the mind on the point of this driving instructor training.
A few things came into my radar and I just want to go over them with you.  The message is really clear and it is to do with the background actually; you don't hit the target by accident.  If you are not aiming for a particular target generally speaking you just don't achieve it.
That point is very relevant in a training environment as well.  A lass who is about 23 yrs old, on Twitter, she wrote on a tweet yesterday "Your driving instructor does not teach you to drive, they teach you to pass your test.  Fact".  It's on my twitter feed if you want to have a look at it, Shelby it was.  I had a short dialogue with her, thanked her for even... imagine what has to happen for someone to go through the process of learning to drive, pass the driving test and still take the trouble to go on their twitter and come out with that tweet.  Imagine how she must be feeling.  That cropped up and I was attempting to understand what had happened for her to be saying that, and you can see it, just go on Twitter and tap in @ShelbySimpsonxx and you'll see it, or just go on to my Twitter feed and you will see it there as well.  It was all to do with her driving instructor not allowing her to use her own car, the way that she was taught manoeuvres, it's quite an interesting point.  It kind of reminds of what I have recently just read by Dr Tim O'Brien in his book "Inner Story".  He makes the point "A teacher who believes that teaching is solely about being in front of the learners can fall swiftly into the trap of being too didactic".  I think we can very much fall into that trap as a driving instructor if we are not aiming to hit a target we could very easily fall into that trap whereby we are doing is really not very effective for our customers, the learners; as Shelby has demonstrated in her tweet.
Also yesterday in the news, you may have seen it, one of the heads in OFSTED Amanda Spielman also made reference to the fact that teaching to tests in the educational world, in schools, teaching to tests gives hollow understanding.  A saw that, and that was an interesting article in itself. It once again, brings in this point of how we can go through this process of teaching people in a learning environment but when they come out the other end, what is the end product if you like, what is the worth of what has been done.  
It always reminds me of quite a few years ago now on The Apprentice where one of Alan Sugars contestants was doing a market stall in London and a customer gave her £20 and she couldn't work out the change.  She had qualifications coming out of her ears, degrees, an entrepreneur, but give change of a £20 note? No, couldn't do it.  And it is that, that's the bit that is lacking, that's the bit where you could spend a lot of time, you could spend a year learning something, yet at the end of that year, if you either don't get what you aimed to get, maybe a certificate, or you are not able to apply to what you have been taught in a meaningful way, that brings success then really, we are kind of missing the point.
Now yesterday, also, I was having a chat with someone who I asked "What do you do?" and she replied "Social media".  Now that doesn't really mean anything does it.  The vast majority of the British population "do" social media.  It doesn't actually mean anything does it.  "How are you assisting small businesses, what value are providing to owners of small businesses in this area of social media?".  We had a conversation of about 10-15 minutes, and I came out of that time and quite frankly I was just thinking to myself what a waste of 10 minutes of my life that was, because the value, the service that was being offered was far too vague, generic, there was just nothing there that I could think to myself, yes that's really going to be good for my business.  There was no value added whatsoever.  And in our world of driving training, we have to be very careful about who we are talking to, our pupils, and pitching things at the right levels.  Because the desire here is for our pupil to develop understanding and skills that actually mean something to them.  It has to actually physically and mentally mean something to our pupil because as Shelby says on her tweet, if we just say things like "So when you are approaching this roundabout then Ian, pay attention to your speed and gears then, attention to your speed and gears.  Now Ian might hear that and think in his head "I've not got a clue what he's saying... speed and gears..... what's he mean?  I don't even know what he means?"  It's completely meaningless.  Or it might be something like "So what you will need to do, when you approach these junctions then is, you need to slow down, and get it in gear first before you get to the turning."  What does that really actually mean for a pupil? It's completely and utterly meaningless.  "Slow down", from what to what?  When do all of this, how do I do it.  It actually doesn't mean anything and so therefore you are saying things and doing things, and your customer is paying you for that time but it is actually not of any value.  Because what it's not doing is tapping into not just a coping mechanism but the thoughts and feelings of the actual pupil about what they need to be doing in any given situations that actually means something to them instead.  Forget about your phrase about speed and gears.  We do come out with some utter rubbish as driving instructors.  And it's like what Dr Tim O'Brien is saying, make sure that what you are doing is pitched perfectly for your pupil so that there is an understanding in your pupil's mind about the road safety concept.  This is a very broad point, nevertheless it's very important because if you are thinking to yourself that you can just say things to Freda, and then John, then Mary and I'll be saying the same thing to Mary and later on I've got Steve, and yes, Steve can have more of the same.  You are coming out with the same stuff for every single pupil.  Some pupils will kind of relate to what you are saying and some pupils will have no idea what you are referring to.  So you are not hitting the target, because what you are doing is treating each pupil exactly the same as if they are somehow tuned into your personal thought processes and as a consequence of treating them all the same, it is going to be hit and miss about how effective your driving training actually is for your pupil.  The consequence of that is that:
a) it doesn't make for happy pupils, pupils come out of the car and thinking "Do you know he kept on banging on to me about speed and gears, I don't know what he is talking about".  They go home to their friends and family and relay the same frustrations.  They may not come back to you.
b) if you're not actually providing something that resonates with them, it doesn't stay with them, it just really really doesn't.  They may comply with what you are saying in the short term, because you are saying to them that is going to pass the test, so therefore they do.  
Do look at this tweet that Shelby has put up yesterday, because she says this.  She says:
"Well it's all about the reference points in her car, she wanted me to do it in her car because that was what I was going to test in".  And so because she does her test in that car, she passes her test and then poor Shelby can't do whatever parking manoeuvres she was referring to.  She just doesn't know how to.  We've got to develop in our pupils the skill of learning how to learn so that it is continuous.  They continue to build layers of experience and learning and they are able to adapt and recognise for themselves where their strengths and weaknesses are and so consequently they can continue to improve.  
So these few things that happened yesterday all have a theme.  
This is the key value of the BIG TOM driving instructor training, the foundation blocks.  The training that you are going to be receiving is very aligned to your needs, and it is very practical.  If you are coming out the other end of it and you are unsure as to the point of the webinar, then that is no good.  I'm not doing my job if I'm not relaying to PDI's and trainee driving instructors the key essential points about making sure that learning is relevant.  Learning does have to be relevant for it to be meaningful and long lasting.  It sounds incredibly simple doesn't it but you might be quite surprised about how lacking this point is in the driving training industry and of course the consequences when this goes wrong out on the roads there is not good.  
Hope this helps.