Thread: Teaching
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Old November 29, 2012, 08:52 PM   #1
Jammer Six
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Join Date: April 3, 2005
Location: Seattle
Posts: 827
Teaching

Note: I started this thread in response to another thread, where this post would have been off-topic.
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I teach five handgun classes: Intro, Basic, Advanced, Defensive and Advanced Defensive.

I could go on all night about curriculum.

There is no standard, as demonstrated by the NRA safety rules vs. The Cooper Four safety rules.

The curriculum comes down to who's paying and who's subsidizing. It comes down to money.

When you're being paid a wage by a range, and you're using that range, that range's weapons, that range's ammo and that range's classroom, your curriculum is what that range says it is.

When you're out at the end of a Forrest Service road, or out in the back of your property, using your weapons and your ammo to introduce a new shooter to weapons free of charge, the curriculum is what you say it is.

Everything else is in between those two extremes.

You'd think the most freedom would come in teaching private lessons, and to a certain extent, you're right. But you still need a range, a classroom and ammo. And whoever provides those is going to want a say.

The methods you use, the rules you enforce and the way you enforce them all spring from those variables.

What passes at one range won't pass at another. It's hard to teach The Cooper Four in a classroom with an NRA poster on the wall entitled "The Safety Rules" with the NRA Three. The Red Line is rarely even noticed at inside ranges with target carriers, and cease fires are rare. The same line on an outside, fixed-target line is emotional death during a cease fire.

Going to a new range where you haven't taught before, and taking a brand-new student into one of the bays, and then flipping the lights out to teach low light is guaranteed to attract attention.

The hardest class I've ever taught was a woman with a smashed face who said "he said he'd kill me if I left him. I left him last night, and I need a gun."

The easiest class was a group of young girl scouts.

If I had my way, and unlimited money, I'd buy land, and bulldoze a simple, four lane range about 50 yards long.
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Last edited by Jammer Six; November 29, 2012 at 08:58 PM.
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