As mentioned in my previous post, I mentioned that my wife was a volunteer student at AllSafe Defense Systems' NRA Pistol Instructor course.
This course is designed to train experienced shooters the techniques necessary to teach the basics of Pistol marksmanship.
In order to do this, the class needed novices who would volunteer to be taught by the student-instructors. There were approximately nine student volunteers; my wife was one of four women in the group.
We arrived at 8:45 for the 9 am course. When we entered we were promptly greeted and given name tags by a friendly woman who was a student-instructor. As volunteer-students, we were given seats in the front for the classroom portion of the day. (Thereafter we were to go to the range to test the student-instructor's ability to teach us.)
(Note: technically, as I had some prior firearms experience I was not a volunteer-student, but accompanied my wife. We agreed ahead of time that I would watch the whole time, but Mr. TJ Johnston was very kind and allowed me to be involved in some of the lessons. Hence, when I say we in this post, I really mean the student-volunteers with me watching nearby.)
Most of the classroom portion of the day was spent with each student-instructor given 3 minutes to teach us an aspect of the lesson. As a professional educator, I really appreciated the designed format for the instruction. None of the student-instructors were permitted to teach anything via giving us a lecture. Rather, they continually asked questions of the volunteer students, guiding the questions they were asking and our answers to help us discover for ourselves the lessons to be learned.
This is a classic example of student-centered instruction, resulting in an active learning environment. The students discovered for themselves (under careful, rigorous supervision) the elements of gun safety, proper stance, sight alignment, sight picture, breathing, trigger control, etc. This is in contradistinction to the type of direct-instruction that leads into instructor-centered learning and a passive learning environment. (E.g., remember college and hours of rapid note-taking?)
The student-instructors then quickly moved us into actually handling (unloaded) Ruger semi-automatic .22 pistols to review and apply the lessons we learned under the careful eye of the student-instructors and the head instructor.
Thereafter we went to the Orange County Indoor Range to practice our skills. I watched intently and noticed that the student-instructors were primarily interested in the volunteers gaining proficiency while having a good time, as opposed to pushing the volunteers to do well so the student-instructors would look good in the class. Like good teachers, they put their students first and wanted them (us) to develop a love for the sport rather than merely doing well themselves ... which is why the student-instructors did so well with their volunteers.
In fact, my wife at the beginning was starting out too tense and not performing as well as she could. She was nervous that if she did not do well enough, that her three student-instructors might not pass the class. They quickly put her mind to rest and told her just to relax and enjoy what she was doing, not worry about them. It was obvious to her that these three men meant exactly what they said, and she immediately began to relax.
Consequently, her performance improved to well that, despite being a total novice who never held a gun before scored a 78 on the rapid fire portion of the drills. The student-instructors were genuinely so please with her performance that one of them gave me a thumb-up and whispered to me "Whatever you do, don't make her mad." An obvious reference to her newly acquired skills.
Thereafter, the class ended with a debriefing session wherein the student-instructors evaluated their volunteer's performance and how they (the instructors) could improve the volunteer's skills. The volunteers also gave the head instructor (TJ Johnston) honest feedback on the student-instructors' strengths and weaknesses. I watched intently as the student-instructors paid careful attention to the feedback with the purpose of improving their teaching skills.
I won't go into all the details here, but I want to end with one closing observation. Mr Johnston also was very careful to appropriately ask each female volunteer if they felt talked down to, made to feel uncomfortable in anyway, or treated negatively due to their gender. It was obvious to me that he really meant this and wanted to be sure no one was treated differently due to being female. Every woman volunteer answered that they were treated just fine and did not feel discriminated against because they were female.
The only down side to our day with AllSafe Defense Systems is that now I am going to have to spend even more money ... buying my wife ammunition. She has really developed a love of shooting and has gotten the bug.
Thank you Mr. Johnston and the student-instructors at AllSafe. It was a really positive experience for the two of us.
(And for those of you student-instructors who are law enforcement or military, Thank you for your service. "We sleep safely in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm.")
(Note: technically, as I had some prior firearms experience I was not a volunteer-student, but accompanied my wife. We agreed ahead of time that I would watch the whole time, but Mr. TJ Johnston was very kind and allowed me to be involved in some of the lessons. Hence, when I say we in this post, I really mean the student-volunteers with me watching nearby.)
Most of the classroom portion of the day was spent with each student-instructor given 3 minutes to teach us an aspect of the lesson. As a professional educator, I really appreciated the designed format for the instruction. None of the student-instructors were permitted to teach anything via giving us a lecture. Rather, they continually asked questions of the volunteer students, guiding the questions they were asking and our answers to help us discover for ourselves the lessons to be learned.
This is a classic example of student-centered instruction, resulting in an active learning environment. The students discovered for themselves (under careful, rigorous supervision) the elements of gun safety, proper stance, sight alignment, sight picture, breathing, trigger control, etc. This is in contradistinction to the type of direct-instruction that leads into instructor-centered learning and a passive learning environment. (E.g., remember college and hours of rapid note-taking?)
The student-instructors then quickly moved us into actually handling (unloaded) Ruger semi-automatic .22 pistols to review and apply the lessons we learned under the careful eye of the student-instructors and the head instructor.
Thereafter we went to the Orange County Indoor Range to practice our skills. I watched intently and noticed that the student-instructors were primarily interested in the volunteers gaining proficiency while having a good time, as opposed to pushing the volunteers to do well so the student-instructors would look good in the class. Like good teachers, they put their students first and wanted them (us) to develop a love for the sport rather than merely doing well themselves ... which is why the student-instructors did so well with their volunteers.
In fact, my wife at the beginning was starting out too tense and not performing as well as she could. She was nervous that if she did not do well enough, that her three student-instructors might not pass the class. They quickly put her mind to rest and told her just to relax and enjoy what she was doing, not worry about them. It was obvious to her that these three men meant exactly what they said, and she immediately began to relax.
Consequently, her performance improved to well that, despite being a total novice who never held a gun before scored a 78 on the rapid fire portion of the drills. The student-instructors were genuinely so please with her performance that one of them gave me a thumb-up and whispered to me "Whatever you do, don't make her mad." An obvious reference to her newly acquired skills.
Thereafter, the class ended with a debriefing session wherein the student-instructors evaluated their volunteer's performance and how they (the instructors) could improve the volunteer's skills. The volunteers also gave the head instructor (TJ Johnston) honest feedback on the student-instructors' strengths and weaknesses. I watched intently as the student-instructors paid careful attention to the feedback with the purpose of improving their teaching skills.
I won't go into all the details here, but I want to end with one closing observation. Mr Johnston also was very careful to appropriately ask each female volunteer if they felt talked down to, made to feel uncomfortable in anyway, or treated negatively due to their gender. It was obvious to me that he really meant this and wanted to be sure no one was treated differently due to being female. Every woman volunteer answered that they were treated just fine and did not feel discriminated against because they were female.
The only down side to our day with AllSafe Defense Systems is that now I am going to have to spend even more money ... buying my wife ammunition. She has really developed a love of shooting and has gotten the bug.
Thank you Mr. Johnston and the student-instructors at AllSafe. It was a really positive experience for the two of us.
(And for those of you student-instructors who are law enforcement or military, Thank you for your service. "We sleep safely in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm.")
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