School Safety Training - Who's Being Trained?

In the last blog, I wrote about Criterion-Referenced Instruction, and how it can be applied to Active Shooter Training, as well as other forms of school safety training.  In this blog, I will ask the most important question a trainer should be asking, "Who is being trained?"

Professional educators who do not consider their students do not last long in education.  What considerations do school safety trainers today give for their classes?  Some give great thought to whom they teach.  Dave Grossman, when presenting at the Indiana School Safety Specialist Academy, doesn't train educators the same way he trains law enforcement, or the way he trains military personnel.  Michael Dorn is the same way.  He adjusts his training to the audience he is training. 

That is what master educators do.  They learn about their students, and find the best way to teach them.  What they don't do is teach the same from class to class.  They discover the learning styles of their students, and design their lessons to match those learning styles.  So again the question becomes, "Who's being trained?"

Educators, as a whole, are not like law enforcement personnel.  The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is a personality survey used by researchers.  The MBTI of educators shows that they are: Introverted, Intuitive, Feeling and Judging (For a more detailed explanation of what these terms fully mean, check out the Wikipedia entry on Myers-Briggs).  INFJs may come across as individualistic, private and perhaps mysterious to others, and may do their thinking in a vacuum, resulting in an unrealistic vision that is difficult to communicate.

Law enforcement, as a group, are ESTJs, Extroverts, Sensing, Thinking, Judging.  According to the MBTI of law enforcement personnel, "ESTJ people tend to be so focused on the objective pursuit of their goal that they ignore the ideas or feelings of others. Situations where an intimate rapport is needed are likely to be less comfortable for them. They may not collect enough information before jumping into action, and risk missing new opportunities that are not already part of their plan.

A look at the two types, even knowing that they don't apply to all within the group, show that law enforcement and educators are vastly different.  This becomes problematic when law enforcement trains educators.  Most law enforcement trainers are used to training cops, not educators.

I am not saying law enforcement officers can't train educators.  As noticed above, some do very well.  Those that do, know their audience, and teach to that audience.  They know whom they are training.

The question is, do you?