|
First, a little background. I've been a cop for thirty years. Before that I was a soldier and after my soldiering stint I did the Reserve/Guard thing until I retired from Uncle Sam's employment. I've been a trainer and I've been on SWAT teams. I've heard shots fired in anger. Been there, done that.
No, cops don't get enough training, but most LEO training is bullcrap for several reasons. First, we're not training for combat. Combat involves maneuver elements, and LEO scenarios don't involve maneuver elements.. Pure and simple. LEO scenarios involve fights and in the vast majority of LEO scenarios I've seen, the student cannot win.
I get it, okay? I work daily in a high-stress environment, where any interaction can turn deadly at the blink of an eye. Yet, effective training gives the student the expectation of success. If it doesn't give that expectation, then you're training the student to fail, and that's not the purpose of effective training.
My department puts us through scenario based training every year, and the deputies routinely curse it. It's something to be endured, another check on the form. In my particular field of expertise, I did some serious mind-gaming eight years ago and came to the conclusion that A+B=C. every year during scenario training, I'd raise my hand and suggest that A+B=C, and the trainers would say no, A+B=D. Okay, I'd go through the training, knowing in my mind that it was crap. Last year, during the initial briefing, the trainers told us that they'd changed their minds, that A+B=C. I raised my hand again and reminded them that I'd been saying that for eight years, but they insisted I was wrong. Then I told them that I'd since moved on, done some more thinking about the issue and that X+Y=Z. They're still six years behind a serious student of this particular problem.
Training is only effective if several conditions are met. First, you've got to think through the training in a logical and orderly process and set certain goals and objectives. Those goals and objectives have to be easily stated and reasonably attainable. Second, you've got to communicate those goals and objectives to the student. Third, if the student meets those goals and objectives, you've got to pass the student. There can't be any surprises, there can't be any trick-plays. Any trainer that tricks his students is a prick of the rarest variety.
Most LEO scenario-based training is not designed to allow the student to win. It's designed to put the student in an unfamiliar situation and react to unrealistic conditions so that those reactions can be analyzed. Yet, those expectations are never stated.
I go into my scenario-based training every year with a sense of fatalistic dread. It's something to be endured, like a trip to the proctologist. I have no expectation of success, only of having to endure eight hours of unrealistic bullcrap, with the last hour being a "we're so great and you guys suck" analysis.
I could rant like this for hours.
|