The most rewarding aspect of teaching is the energy transfer that occurs between instructor and pupil when both parties are fully invested in each other’s development. Each is consciously and subconsciously working together to better the other, enabling both to make great strides and reach individual watershed moments with mutual jubilation. However, this energy transfer can only occur if each party is fully invested in the learning process – an investment that extends beyond the finite timeframe of the lesson. Pre-work, post-work, reflection, analysis, and dedication to continued improvement are two-way streets. When the instructor and student invest in the entire process, equally, the result is a synergistic learning cycle of material taught, processed, and practiced.
To put this in the context of an introductory-level firearms class, the prospective student has already made a significant financial investment by the time she sets foot on the range. From buying the necessary equipment, to traveling to the class location and possibly incurring lodging and other incidental costs, as well as dedicating the hours exclusively to training, the student arrives to class prepared to learn and apply new material. Likewise, the instructor arrives having invested himself financially and professionally in the class, and is ready to facilitate learning, coach, and mentor. Both teacher and student bring with them a certain intangible level of investment, the student with her desire for knowledge and the teacher with his experiential background and ability to convey information efficiently and effectively.
Once the introductory phase has passed, it is the student’s responsibility to arrive to class with more than just the correct equipment and a blank notebook. She must arrive with hours of purposeful practice under her belt, having dedicated personal time to the development of her skills in the absence of the instructor. At this point, having established a baseline of competence and capability, the student begins to build a culture of self-directed excellence around her practice. She honors her craft in the pursuit of that excellence, a process dedicated to achieving and exceeding the high standard inherent in the awesome responsibility of choosing a firearm as a self-defense tool.
The energy transfer between a high-level instructor and a dedicated, high-rep student is exponentially more powerful than the one that occurs between the same instructor and his less-experienced pupil. As the instructor works to raise the bar higher for his rapidly improving and evolving high-rep student, his own skills reach their apogee as the pressure of the engagement pushes both teacher and student to the limits of the respective abilities in a quest for the purest expression of their skills. For the teacher, he must bring to bear all of his experience in teaching and practice in order to present material that will continue to engage and further develop the student, exposing failure points and applying remediation along the way. For the student, she must display both mastery of past instruction and hunger for the new. For both parties, they arrive to the exchange with minimized distractions, fully prepared for the potentially transformative experience of training together.
The title of this article is “Student Responsibility,” because though student and instructor are distinct people for illustrative purposes, their primary roles are one and the same. Both are students first, and both seek to honor and respect their craft, devoid of ego and pretense. The instructor has an additional stated duty, to instruct the information dictated by the curriculum in the most efficient, responsible manner possible. The student’s instructional duty is unstated, unbound by curriculum or agenda. Rather, it is her responsibility to develop the instructor indirectly, presenting questions that increase the effectiveness of the instructor communication, and gracefully enduring temporary failures that challenge the instructor’s ability to troubleshoot and problem solve, with a critical eye for his own displayed level of competence in the discipline.
Student and teacher are two sides of the same coin, and each arrive to class with a responsibility to themselves, and to each other. They share a bond unique to their respective stations in relation to their pursuit of excellence in their chosen endeavors. This responsibility must not be taken lightly; For an effective transfer of energy and optimal learning to occur, both sides must trust the other and present the best version of themselves.