In the past I’ve written specifically about the GDE Matrix, Coaching and instructors, the DL25 and how to use it for coaching purposes, and most recently about how you can use coaching in a variety of ways (which most ADIs can’t even begin to understand).
The last two attracted some smart aleck comments from one of the webforums. It made me laugh hard when one of the self-proclaimed experts said that the examples I had given weren’t coaching, and that they were “just Q&A” and “leading the pupil”.
The same forum has recently held an online session with a guest “coaching expert” speaker who was actually on the HERMES project, and it has made the transcript available. If you can sift through the 90% of the transcript which contains the usual “how r u” type comments, and ADIs trying to get one over on everyone and everything (“I already do that”, “I was using that 20 years ago”, and so on), there is one absolutely telling comment from the speaker:
An example of a coaching technique. Coaching techniques focus on questions and problem solving exercise.
Well, well, well. The HERMES expert says Q&A is part of coaching. As for the other guy – the “expert” in his own living room – I’ll just repeat that phrase I used at the beginning…
Most ADIs can’t even begin to understand what coaching really is.
These are the ones who need to spend some money on the right sort of CPD. The DSA is unlikely (well, it won’t. Period) to assume that no one is coaching – but just as there are some people who barely scrape a Grade 4 (and are happy with it). The reason they never achieve better is probably already due to them not using any coaching techniques anyway, and it is these who will be seen not to be training pupils properly once the new DSA syllabus comes in and Check Tests start (well, after the trials are completed, anyway).
I still don’t think that that last paragraph will get the point across, so I’ll say it differently:
Coaching is a skill that any good ADI should be using already anyway. The reason for the present focus on the subject is twofold:
- too many people are killed on the roads and the DSA et al wants to try and change that
- we have too many ADIs who are simply not good enough
Like it or not, although poor teaching isn’t the only cause of deaths on the road by a large margin, those two things above are closely linked. Bad ADIs are obviously not going to teach people to drive properly, are they? It is these deficient ADIs who need the coaching courses. However, those people also need to realise that paying £500 or more to go on one doesn’t automatically mean you are a suddenly a good ADI – coaching is a skill, not something you get off a shelf by paying a retail price.
And this is where the problem is. The people pushing coaching courses are trying to make a fast buck in an industry where many people are finding it hard to make money from simple driving lessons. So they are talking things up, and gullible ADIs are swallowing it hook, line, and sinker.
The big question is whose interests are they serving? The ADI’s? Or their own?
Coaching is something which is missing from a lot of ADIs’ toolboxes. A lot of ADIs are not teaching to a high enough standard. They may even be unsuitable to remain on the Register – who knows?
Coaching is not something brand new that everyone has got to go out an buy lots of. Unfortunately, this is exactly how some people are treating it.