Training scenarios

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I came across this blog post on the site Larry Coreia, who is a CCW instructor and an excellent mil sci/fi-horror writer (his 2nd book, "Monster Hunter Vendetta" just came out). Having read through it, it just made me think - why isn't everybody doing this????

http://larrycorreia.wordpress.com/2010/09/23/role-playing-for-ccw-its-not-just-for-geeks-anymore/#comments

[Chatterbox]

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This is one big honking blog post, but I think you get the idea. I’ve got several others that I work in if there is time. I do one where I’m an off-duty cop that just apprehended a suspect right in front of the student’s house. (it’s Larry with a gun pointed at that guy! And he’s wearing the rapist coat! BAM BAM BAM BAM). I do another where you find me in your living room and I try to explain how I’m from the power company and there’s been a gas leak (I’m so totally not).You can use your imagination. Just remember, try to focus on picking something that has several learning points to talk about.

ALWAYS DEBRIEF! On the debrief, I always ask the student 1. What did you see? 2. Why did you do what you did? Let the student explain. (oftentimes, if you do everything right and you hit that emotional note necessary to get some adrenalin in there, you’ll be surprised how screwed up the student’s perceptions can be. COMPLIMENT the student for anything they did right. Do not berate them for mistakes. Walk them through the mistakes they made and what they maybe would’ve done different.

Once the student has been debriefed, let them sit down before you ask the class if what they did was 1. Legal. 2. Tactical. And could they have done anything better/different? Don’t make the student stay up there as the focus of attention. That makes some people uncomfortable, and if they did something really stupid, they don’t need to keep feeling bad about it. They just need to have learned something.

As you run these scenarios multiple times, you will soon see just about every possible way to solve the problem. Some of these will surprise you. Now is a good time to ask the class, well, what if he had just done this? Or what if he had done that? You can get into some great discussions that way. (remember, you are the one in charge of the discussion, not the students, or otherwise you’ll blunder off into crazy town in short order).

Well, I hope that helps. This might not work for everyone, but I found these exercises to be extremely helpful, and the class really enjoyed them. We actually had a lot of fun with these, and most importantly it got the students thinking.