When I started out, as a trainee driving instructor with BSM, I remember being surprised by some instructors who seemed almost relieved when a pupil cancelled a lesson, or pleased when they had a quiet day ahead. I remember one even suggesting that I would be the same after a few years. (By the way, I am not just referring to BSM instructors). Well, several years later and I can confirm that they were wrong; If anything, I look forward to my lessons even more than I used to. I particularly enjoy the fact that every single lesson is different. No two pupils are the same and, even with the same pupil, no two lessons are the same.
Recently, with many pupils approaching their tests, I have had a large proportion of lessons where they know what they should and should not be doing, and it is a matter of polishing their skills to the best of our abilities. With so many passing recently and so many new pupils, the large majority of my pupils are now closer to the other end of the ability range. It can take a little adjustment on my part. No matter how many notes I make in my diary, it is impossible to remember just how good/bad a particular pupil's clutch control or parallel park, for example, is.
When I was undergoing my training for my part 3 exam, I had to tailor the level of instruction to the standard of pupil. Sometimes with training, it was easy to think 'Well surely a pupil would not do that?!' or 'Surely if I told a pupil to do this they would do it?'. Wrong. Very occasionally you get a pupil who will listen to my instruction and be able to do it from that point onwards..... very occasionally. With the large majority of pupils, I have to start with explanation (with diagrams and, sometimes, demonstration), then we practice with me giving full step-by-step instruction. When that goes well, we practice with me asking them with questions in advance. For example, "There is a parked car up ahead. What is the first thing you need to do?" Once they can manage the skill without prompts I try leaving them to it, but watching out for anything they might be missing. By working our way through this Explained - Guided - Prompted - Independent process, we hope to get to the stage where they can do it all without me. At this point I cry because they don't need me anymore.
But it gets more complicated than that because, as I said earlier, every lesson is different. And my pupils are human (ish). Sometimes on a lesson, I will ask a trained pupil to turn right at a crossroads, for example, and I can see them hesitating because their mind goes blank and they forget who has priority. Or, conversely, I will ask a relatively new pupil to do something and, just as I am about to instruct them to do something, I see that they are already doing it.
For a pupil who can usually do a particular manoeuvre/skill, they can find it frustrating when, inexplicably, they then have a lesson when they are struggling. What they don't understand is that ALL drivers are like that. ALL drivers have stalled, forgotten to indicate, made a pig's ear of a parallel park or scuffed the curb since passing their test.
Probably the most rewarding part of instructing is when a pupil really struggles with something, then, one day, they crack it. So, at the moment, I have lots of pupils who are struggling with various aspects of their lessons. There are times when, even when we step back a bit, go through a full explanation, followed by full, guided instruction, they can still get it wrong. They get frustrated and I scratch my head and try to think of a different approach. One way or another we get there.
It was only a few months ago that Maggie was struggling with her reversing, James' approach to junctions was causing him problems, and Franci had no idea what was happening around her car. As I wrote last week, they all passed with just four minor faults between them. I would love to have a time machine to take them back to their first lessons to see how far they progressed. But I guarantee that, at some point in the future they will do something stupid while driving and maybe think 'I'm glad Martin wasn't here to see that.'
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