The Lifelong Student

Recently I had a humbling experience. I had the honor of being asked by someone who I consider to be a mentor to teach him. It felt weird. I mean this guy is a person I look up to, so what in the world can I offer? In asking me to teach him, he once again taught me another lessons: never stop learning.

I always say when I teach a class that the students who attend all have unique experiences, some are extremely good at what they do, and I look forward to learning from each and every one of them just as much as I look forward to teaching. It never fails. Over the years I learned many valuable lessons from my students, and for that I am grateful.

An additional benefit of keeping a student’s mindset is the opportunity to evolve. In my line of work, from tactical instruction to security operations, stagnation equals death. While I sit at home or the office, the criminal element is out there counter training to the way we operate. And it is simple to be lulled into a sense of complacency. After all, what we've been doing has been working, so no need to change it, right? Wrong! We need to learn what the adversary does, and develop tactics and skills to mitigate that. Evolve. That is we survive in this daily battle we call life. This is where our students come in.

I know I am at fault of this, and pretty sure many of you are as well, but it is difficult to take that step back and look from the outside in. Getting that global view of what is going on. Inside our own bubble we may believe nothing needs changing. Not because we do it on purpose, but because over time we pegged ourselves into the hole we created. But our students don’t “suffer” from having the same blinds on. They see things differently, mainly because they don’t share our background and exact same experiences. Thus allowing for a fresh and out-of-the-box view of things. By doing so they will ask questions, offer alternate solutions, and remark on what you, as the instructor, are saying. And hopefully, if you are not too proud, you can keep an open ear, and as importantly: an open mind, and let their questions, suggestions, and remarks, spin the little wheels in your head and prompt you to change.

I love school. I hated being in school as a kid. But I love learning. To this day. I get advance degrees not because I need another piece of paper saying that I paid enough in tuition to earn it, but because I enjoy learning new information. When not in a formal school, I spend time researching new information. I read...typically three or four books at the same time. I force myself to rewrite presentations, manuals, and curriculums every year so they have to be updated. A perfect example is when I teach our Law-Enforcement Defensive Tactics course: every class gets its own updated manual. Because after every class I will evaluate the content and update as needed. Why? Because I can guarantee I learned something new from one of my students!

So what is the best advise I can give aspiring instructors and teachers? Stay humble and be a student. And hope that one day you will have the opportunity to go to one of your students and ask them to teach you.