{"id":15596,"date":"2014-05-15T00:26:06","date_gmt":"2014-05-14T23:26:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.diaryofanadi.co.uk\/?p=15596"},"modified":"2014-05-15T00:26:06","modified_gmt":"2014-05-14T23:26:06","slug":"sound-advice-for-learners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/?p=15596","title":{"rendered":"Sound Advice For Learners"},"content":{"rendered":"

I saw this in the newsfeeds<\/a>. It concerns advice from a RED driving instructor about how to prepare for the driving test.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s nothing wrong with any of the advice, though I\u2019m not sure I agree that \u201cinteractive online learning tools\u201d will keep people sharp between lessons. It was the first three sections that caught my eye, though. You see, lately I seem to have been slightly swamped by pupils who can barely (or don\u2019t want to) afford lessons, and yet are desperate to pass their tests.\"Fry<\/p>\n

I mentioned a couple of months ago<\/a> how one pupil\u2019s father was desperate for him to \u201chave a try\u201d at the test, with no allowance whatsoever that the boy had some sort of learning issue and was a dangerous driver on the road. On his last lesson with me (less than two weeks away from the test they had re-booked against my advice) he emergency stopped in the middle of a busy junction because he suddenly realised he didn\u2019t know where \u201cstraight ahead\u201d was, and he would reliably steer the exact opposite way to what he should have when reversing. Indeed, I had identified with him \u2013 in these precise words \u2013 that he believed that when something was coming closer<\/strong> in the mirror, it was therefore moving further away<\/strong> from the car.<\/p>\n

Then there was the one who had apparently taken a lot of lessons previously<\/a>, and who didn\u2019t want to take any more because he couldn\u2019t afford it. His solution was to keep taking tests, but only doing a single hour lesson a day or two before each one. By my reckoning, he had spent something like \u00a3250-\u00a3300 on lessons with me, and a further \u00a3320 on tests. And yet I could not get him to understand that if he\u2019d have spent even half of the amount gone on tests taking additional lessons he may well have passed by now. His otherworldly argument was that he might not have, so it would have been a waste of money. I also couldn\u2019t get him to understand that just because he\u2019d failed for \u201csomething different\u201d each time that didn\u2019t mean that he just didn\u2019t have to do that one thing wrong again to be sure of having eliminated it. It was his underlying driving that led to these errors.<\/p>\n

In fact, when he was in the car he was one of those people I have come to regard as \u201ctaut\u201d. I\u2019m sure you have seen them yourselves \u2013 the slightest external stimulus can prompt a disproportionate action by either feet or hands, and they\u2019ll reach for the handbrake instead of the gear lever, the wipers instead of the indicator stalk, or do the \u201cbungee leg\u201d thing when moving off at lights. I have two female pupils at the moment who are like that, and both of them have been given beta-blockers by their respective GPs. These have had a dramatic effect in both of them, but one in particular (whose GP has also referred her to a hypnotherapist) worries me because she\u2019s by far the most taut driver I\u2019ve ever seen. Beta-blockers seem to be almost a miracle cure for debilitating test nerves in some learners \u2013 but people can\u2019t keep taking them forever.<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s another current pupil whose mother is in charge. His test is coming up and she\u2019s suddenly decided that it would be best for him to have two 1 hour lessons a week instead of the single 1\u00bd hour lesson he\u2019s been having up until now. She\u2019s totally wrong, because we can do more on a 1\u00bd hour lesson than we can on two one hour ones due to travel times to and from suitable locations, and being able to cover bigger areas. Sure, it\u2019s more money for me, but that\u2019s not the only reason I do this job and it makes me mad that these people can\u2019t see it. Even if he manages to persuade her to change her mind, we\u2019ll have wasted part of a week already. To make matters worse, he was a calm and progressive driver until a few weeks ago, whereas I\u2019m now seeing signs of tautness in him, too.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not at all happy with my pass rate this year, as it\u2019s still only 50%, and the serial failers (of which most have been taut drivers) have taken so many tests that I\u2019ll need a spectacular run of passes to get it up to where it was last year. Part of me is thinking that these pupils are just a blip in the big scheme, but the other part is wondering if it is a sign of a more dramatic change. A small part even wonders if it\u2019s something I\u2019m doing wrong \u2013 I know it isn\u2019t, but you can\u2019t help wonder. However, it does seem to show that there\u2019s more to passing your test than just following some rigid guidelines. Everyone is different, and they seem to be getting more different by the generation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I saw this in the newsfeeds. It concerns advice from a RED driving instructor about how to prepare for the driving test. There\u2019s nothing wrong with any of the advice, though I\u2019m not sure I agree that \u201cinteractive online learning tools\u201d will keep people sharp between lessons. It was the first three sections that caught […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[80,87,82],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adi-related","category-news","category-training"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15596"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15596\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}