Is it only patience?

Often when I meet up with friends or family, a question pops up 'How's the driving instruction work going Martin?'. After my reply they will say 'I don't know how you do it, I wouldn't have the patience'. But hang on a minute, is that all you need for instructing?


The great thing about my summer and winter jobs is meeting people from all walks of life, finding out about their backgrounds, their jobs/studies, what makes them tick and how they respond to instruction. For example Don, Emir and Kelly are all very different personalities but they all learn in the same manner. They are, respectively, a masters graduate of finance and economics, an accountant and a criminal psychiatrist. Their learning styles are based around using rigid procedures and specific set sequences on the open roads of Coventry. Anything away from using these learning styles would quickly backfire and possibly have disasterous consequences.

Whereas Inderjeet and Adam (a milk distribution manager and a teaching assistant at a school for autism), have slightly different learning styles. Once introduced to the above-mentioned procedures and sequences, their improvement depends on being given the 'freedom' to try them out at their own pace on different roads. The skill of the instructor is to vary the types of roads and junctions to the level of the learner. Some learners are easily spooked by other road users, where other learners aren't affected at all.



As individuals, our learning styles often cross over to other areas, especially when learning to ski. The mountains are an open environment, just like roads, where other factors affect skiers' progress. Weather, snow quality, business of slopes, peer pressure, the list goes on.


Some skiers thrive on a full technical breakdown through discussion. Other skiers will learn more by watching demonstrations. Others will learn more by following behind the instructor. Some benefit from constant direct assessment whilst practising.


When skiers improve, some will want to stay in their comfort zone and won't want to try steeper slopes until they've made 100 perfect turns in a row. But other skiers when they reach, let's say, 60 perfect turns out of 100, can't wait to then try their new skills on steeper slopes.
So just like teaching learner drivers, the art of instructing is to quickly find out each individual's learning style then selecting the appropriate teaching styles, followed by continous re-assessment. So the next time I hear someone say to me that I must have loads of patience to teach, I will agree with them and say "Yes, I've got bucket loads of the stuff", and leave it there. But there really is more to it than that.

Martin

P.S. One more week to go before heading back to the Alps, I'm really really getting excited now.