Thursday . . . September 22 was “the day”! The day that years of development, testing,
tweaking and just plain old hard work reached its conclusion. NAPSI conducted it’s very first – of many to
come – “Instructional Methods and Procedures” and “Foundations of Defensive
Pistol Instructor Development” courses. It was a very good four days.
The purpose of this AAR is to fully describe the NAPSI
coursework, the requirements to become a NAPSI instructor and then to lay out a
full AAR of the four days of instruction. As Kirk would say . . . Buckle Up!
First – why even bother developing a new set of coursework. Well . . . to be perfectly honest . . . the
answer is simple – Need! The harsh
reality in today’s training world is that the majority of folks looking for a
carry permit are interested in taking a single solitary course, period! In our (the founding members of NAPSI) opinion
there are few courses out there that provide a solid foundation of defensive
shooting to their students. There are
very solid “shooting sports” courses, some “out there” tacti-cool courses, some
very good shooting only courses . . . but not many that cover things from parts
of a SA Revolver to the foundations of defensive shooting. That was missing in our opinion and that was
our focus as we developed our coursework.
Next, and equally important, is actual instructor development. Teaching an instructor how to actually teach
solid coursework. Providing them the
training to effectively present our material to their students.
Finally, to develop a “product”. In this case the “Foundations of Defensive
Pistol” and the associated “Foundations of Defensive Pistol Instructor
Development” coursework to teach the instructor candidate how to teach the
actual course. It’s easy to see how developing
this coursework spanned years. We wrote
it, taught it to peers, rewrote parts, taught it to peers, had our own
development conferences with the founding members to work on and polish it,
taught it to beta groups, tweaked again, more development conferences . . . all
to get to September 22nd. It’s
been a good journey. It’s been a
challenging journey. And, it’s been a
worthwhile journey. We are proud of what
we have, what we have done and on Sunday afternoon, September 25th .
. . we were very proud of our first four new instructors – Jim, Kenny, Sean and
Jim. So let’s talk about the process.
Before any instructor candidate was considered, they had to
actually attend a “Foundations of Defensive Pistol” course. We’ve held a number of them in the Midwest in
Iowa, Missouri and Illinois. Why? At the lowest level – how can you teach what
you haven’t taken? And at the opposite
end – what better way to decide if you want to teach a course than to take it
first to see if you and it are a fit.
From the corporate side – it’s a “qualifier” . . . if you’re not serious
enough to take the course, you probably aren’t serious enough to actually teach
it. It is NOT our intent to find out how
many instructors we can create. It IS
our intent to create solid, focused and skilled instructors to teach our coursework. Taking the course seems like a minimal
effort.
Next we expect an instructor candidate to be actively
learning. We expect them to be taking
coursework annually. As part of the
instructor application each individual was expected to list their existing
teaching certifications as well as list what coursework they had taken with us
paying special attention to annual training.
Our belief is that if instructors are not taking coursework . . . they
are not growing, not learning and will probably not be a good fit for NAPSI.
Personal references are also a must – we require
three. These are folks who will be able
to vouch for the candidate and hopefully be able to vouch as to their teaching
and shooting ability.
An individual resume is also expected. Who is the candidate, what are their skills,
their level of training, their goals?
The instructor candidate must have a current certification
in some level of first aid – from a Red Cross First Aid cert to an EMT – some level
of training is required and must be kept current.
All of this is followed by an individual interview by two
of the founding members of NAPSI. These
averaged an hour or so with a list of about 20 questions that we asked and listened
to. It was our opportunity to get a “feel”
for the candidate, see how they responded when put on the spot and allowed us
one more level of evaluation. Both
interviewers were required to approve the candidate for them to move forward.
And finally, a shooting test. 30 rounds, 15 feet on a LETargets SEB target
with passing score of 80% being required.
Get past all of this . . . and the person became a member
of our very first Instructor Development course. We had a dozen-ish inquiries where applications
were sent out. Four followed through. And we were happy with that.
Our first Instructor Development Course was hosted by Pistol Prep Academy in Atlanta, IL
under the ownership of Annette Chapman.
She has a great training facility and has hosted the majority of our development
conferences. We began promptly at 8AM on
Wednesday the 22nd . . . and finished 7PM-ish. Let’s call it a “solid” day.
The first two days of the course focused on the “Instructional
Methods and Procedures”. There are two
primary goals of this set of coursework – to teach the instructor how to teach
according to NAPSI guidelines. And, to
essentially introduce the candidate to the corporate culture of NAPSI. Both are important. Both are necessary to develop a cadre of
dedicated, educated, focused and mutually supportive instructors. If we all aren’t on exactly the same page, if
we aren’t all headed in the same direction . . . we will fail. It is not our intention to fail, so we are
investing two days up front to develop our instructor candidates into fellow
team mates.
“Instructional Methods and Procedures” consists of four
chapters, each with specific areas of focus as well as a number of Appendices
meant to round out the coursework.
Chapter
1 – Ethics
We’ve all seen far too many “instructors” put speed and
dollars ahead of solid instruction. It
is our expectation that a NAPSI instructor follow our general list of ethical
guidelines, that they adhere to our Code of Ethics, that they interact with students
in a respectful way as well as with fellow instructors. And finally, that conflicts with either
students or fellow instructors are resolved “peaceably”.
Chapter
2 – Standards of Cirriculum
We have developed seven tenets of a Defensive Shooting
Program. They get us on the “same page”. We expect candidates to follow them as well
as maintaining high standards of training, high individual standards, high levels
of proficiency and that courses be reported and documented in a timely
fashion. It’s hard to expect adherence
to corporate expectations if we don’t teach them – hence Chapter 2.
Chapter
3 – Policies and Procedures
We are a corporation, with a well-defined corporate
culture. This is where that culture is
taught. From the use of the NAPSI name
and images to training material, roles and responsibilities, corporate hierarchy,
the use of training teams, instructor fees and range operation. It’s a busy chapter meant to more fully
define the culture that is contained within NAPSI.
This is about where day one ended. Well . . . kinda ended in “Chubbies” over a
couple adult beverages and some great burgers.
On the NAPSI side, we all walked away from the day pretty happy with how
it went . . . from the candidate side we drained them pretty dry but they all
left with their head still in the game and looking forward to day two.
Chapter
4 – Methods of Instruction
This is a huge chunk of information . . . big, enormous,
lots and lots of data. General topics covered
the function of training, plausibility principle (H/T to Rob Pincus),
principals of adult learning, types of learners, variables that affect
learning, skill development, other theories of teaching, being confident and
competent, types of communication, keys to teaching a new skill, instructional
aids, evaluating student performance and working with students with
disabilities. An action packed day! We wrapped up talking about course check
lists, how to organized your course, marketing and promotion, running a
successful business and various course templates. We ended the day heading back to our B&B
and to a home cooked meal courtesy of Tracie.
Honestly, I cannot thank her enough for taking care of us – home cooked breakfasts,
home cooked meals in the evening . . . MMMMMMmmmmmmmm!!
And so ended our “Introduction to Methods and Procedures”. One thing to keep in mind here . . . not only
did we need to develop this portion of the coursework, we had to develop the
coursework to actually teach “Introduction to Methods and Procedures”. That is the only way we are able to ensure
that the next time we teach this course (after the first of the year), it will
be taught in a consistent fashion. At
the end of the two days as the NAPSI SITs gathered in the living room of our
B&B, we had a chance to assess of first two days. Bottom line we were more than pleased. We found a few areas that we will tweak – but
we all agreed that things had gone well and we were looking forward to the candidates teaching the “Foundations of
Defensive Pistol” the following day and we were all looking forward to the
range work on Sunday.
Day 3 –
Foundations of Defensive Pistol
Again, remember that to present this material to candidates
two pieces of coursework are required.
First is the coursework the candidate will use to teach this to their
students. The second is the coursework
that allows NAPSI to teach this coursework to instructor candidates in a
consistent manner. It’s simply not a
matter of throwing together a power point or a handful of drills – it takes real
effort to put “meat on the bones”.
This day is entirely in the hands of the candidates. There are seven classroom lessons. These were distributed in bits and pieces to
the candidates and they were given time to prepare and then then were required
to do a “teach back” to those in the classroom.
There was a lot of material . . .
an introduction to revolvers and semi-automatic pistols, firearm safety
and safe gun handling, an introduction to holsters, belts and off body carry. This was followed by an introduction ao
ammunition, range safety, care and cleaning of handguns, the fundamentals of
defensive shooting, mindset and selecting a defensive firearm.
This was a full day with hours of candidate taught lessons and
immediate feedback provided by follow candidates and the SITs. This is the rubber/road interface where an
instructor candidate must simply step up and show what they’re made of. Again, we were pleased with the results. This ended the classroom portion of the
coursework – Sunday, the 25th would be the range day.
Day 4 –
Range Work
First out of the chute was the instructor candidate
qualification shoot. 30 rounds, 15 feet
with a score of 80%, they could “drop 6”.
We allowed about a 50-round warmup.
I loaded three magazines with a total of 40 rounds and shot my own
personal qual target. Honestly, this is one
of my expectations of every instructor I teach.
You need to shoot the qual course first . . . and you need to pass –
period. I shot an extra 10 rounds since
we didn’t want to give away the actual course of fire but I was happy with the
result – I dropped 4 out of 40 for a 90%.
Not bad shooting it cold.
Next came the teaching of the live fire drills. There are three primary lessons – an Introduction
of Defensive shooting, Use of Cover and Concealment and finally a final
shooting qualification course of fire.
There are 18 live fire exercises.
One builds on the other until the final qualification course of
fire. Each candidate was assigned a
specific drill, or portion of a drill.
They were evaluated on their teaching ability with live fire, they were
corrected, encouraged and expected to be able to demonstrate their ability to
safely and correctly teach the assigned shooting drill. Again, we were very pleased with what we saw.
Once the range work was complete there was the 1-hour
final. Ten essay questions that demanded
that the candidates be able to articulate what they had been learning over the
past 4 days. Honestly, I had my doubts
of making this an essay test – but I was personally pleasantly surprised. The answers were clear, well thought out and
definitely showed that we had four candidates deserving of receiving their
NAPSI Defensive Pistol Shooting Coach certificate.
Passing out their certificates, final pictures and a heck
of a wind/rain storm ended our first Instructor Development Course.
Looking back . . . the work has been worth it. The hours and hours writing, testing, peer
review, development conferences, the hundreds of hours and probably thousands
of dollars of personal investment by the founding members has delivered exactly
what we had hoped, a Foundations of Defensive Pistol course we are all proud
of, and an Instructor Development set of course work that will insure that
those who wish to teach this coursework to their own students will provide
simply the best to their student.
Jim, Sean, Kenny and Jesse – congrats on your completion of
the very first Instructor Development Course.
Thank you for all your hard work!
For those interested in following in their footsteps – we will
be posting a 2017 schedule soon, keep an eye out. In the meantime, you are welcome to contact
us any time. We will do our best to
answer your questions. Contact
information can be found at NAPSITraining.com.
