The Illinois Model

Longtime readers of this blog know I got my start in human learning & development as a police tactical firearms instructor . (They'll also recognize I often use human learning & development as a catch-all for training, education, maturation, decision-making, growth, human factors, & more...but that's another debate!)  Almost twenty (20) years ago, I received my first firearms trainer certificate after a week of: shooting, reviewing shooting fundamentals, practicing range commands, and...giving a five (5) minute lecture to my classmates on a relevant topic of my choice. It was a terrible class. I left class without learning much. As I was now going to be responsible for safely running a firearms range, I relied upon what I experienced as a police academy student several years prior.  So what does a typical 1990's police firearms range look like?  Well, it looks a lot like 1970's firearms range pictures: Maybe something less com...

Earlier this week, the Tulsa (Oklahoma) Police Department released body-worn video of the May 10th officer-involved shooting along expressway I-44. The abbreviated video can be seen here: These sorts of videos spark lots of commentary by police officers and firearms trainers. I was tagged into some of that commentary, including: This is why we start our patrol rifle qualification out with a 100 yard sprint. Excellent work by this officer and @TulsaPolice https://t.co/tJH3xn4hcZ — Patrick (@GunOfBavaria) May 23, 2019 At first blush, I agree with @GunOfBavaria that this is some excellent work by this officer.  I do not know "Patrick" or his police department or his police department's training or policy. Yes, I do assume he is a Michigan police officer as he describes in his twitter bio. The metro Detroit area has a fairly decent reputation in the police patrol rifle/carbine community - that I'll attribute to available training there. (N...

I vividly recall the feeling when I popped out of the subway into Times Square. I had lost my bearings. No sense of direction. So many flashing lights, honking horns, fast-walking pedestrians. Hard to separate signal from noise . Our hotel was but a block away (as learned from studying a map), but I didn't know which way to begin. Aside from our luggage as a red flag, I must have had TOURIST written all over my face.  Contrast this New York City scene with dropping me off on a corner of hometown Chicago and taking off my blindfold. A check of a street sign and some address numbers on a building might tell me exactly where I am. Other clues include: the people, architecture, landmarks, smells, the direction a river flows, the route name on a passing CTA bus, clues in a billboard, gang graffiti.   The bits of stimuli begin to cluster together to help a person  make sense of the situation. But they can only synthesize a hypothesis or answer based on historical knowl...

I hate Training . The word, not the learning format. And maybe  hate  is a bit strong. But still probably not what you expect to hear from a police Training Coordinator and Firearms Range Master. I'm edgy about the word  Training  because it's inappropriately become a catch-all for a wide variety of methods used to develop employees for the workplace. Training just so happens to be a one of them, rather than the broader umbrella of human development and learning. And I'm a stickler for language when I believe its ill-fitted application has farther reaching consequences. In this case, I contend the terminology gives a connotation of standardized programming, conditioning, and mechanization that should simply not exist in much of the development of our people. Training is really but one delivery format used to change behavior or performance. What immediately comes to mind is a toddler's potty-training. There are clear standards...or at least expec...

It's been a half-dozen years since I became infected with the  problem-based learning  virus. Some call it a   shift   in teaching style; I see it as a radical and revolutionary flip upside-down. My personal experience has been   that   positive and significant. As have the results in our learners. I joined the police department's firearms training unit in 2001. Immediately after receiving my instructor certificate, I began training police officers to be the best shooters they could be. I taught my shooters using the training techniques that I learned from my instructor school...which, predictably, where the same methods that my academy firearms instructors used on me. It's the perpetual loop of "we teach the same way in which we were taught." I found myself recycling old drills. These were repetitive technical exercises - static marksmanship, reloading, clearing stoppages or malfunctions, shooting with opposite...

from the catwalk above a live-fire shoot house facility Arguably some of the best police tactical training is held inside a live-fire shoot house. In such a venue, the walls are bulletproof, the ammunition is real, the decisions are quick, and The Pucker Factor is high.  Whenever running live-fire shoot house training, I sense anxiety in the student attendees, my fellow instructors, and   myself . Imagine doing dynamic team movements that must be trusted with loaded firearms behind you! Whether veterans to such exercises, or first-timers, each person experiences some level of fearful anticipation. And that's a good thing. Fear can surely limit growth and learning. But it can also bring tremendous focus and concentration. When the bullets are flying (quite literally), you have to remain in control of your emotions, your body, and your mental processor. In the shoot house, we keep very low tolerances for mistakes, oversights, or missteps.    We ...

You are sitting in one of the finest restaurants in your city - the sort of place where the a-la-carte side dishes easily push the bill into triple digits. There's reminiscing with old friends at your table. Before you know it, you realize the discussion was so captivating that you haven't tasted your meal since the first bite. How the heck did a $50 slab of meat sneak its way past your taste buds? Better yet, how did you not notice your boss sit down at the next table over...30 minutes ago? Change the setting: Walking down the sidewalk. You watch as a young bicyclist, darting into the roadway, is struck by a car. The car flees, but you zero in on the license plate. You check on the injured boy. Your fingers tremble as you fumble through three simple and memorized digits.  Until they pull into view, you don't even hear the waling sirens of the ambulance and police car. Weeks, months, or years later....you still remember the numbers on the offender's license plate and...