Teaching Courses

[kurokaze]

I know more than a few of you here have taught
courses during your career. I for one find
myself more drawn to the idea of teaching than
I ever thought I would be. Although I wouldn‘t
really be "teaching" per se (why they don‘t let
officers teach is beyond me), something about
molding recruits and candidates seems quite
appealing.

So, for those who have taught, if you wouldn‘t
mind relaying your experiences (good & bad)
about teaching courses?

 

[muskrat89]

Officers do teach some things - well, they used to. NCOs teach - not only other ranks, but Officers as well. It‘s part of our gig

I enjoyed intructing on courses. I particularly liked the Gun Numbers course, but don‘t have a clue what they call that now.

 

[OLD SCHOOL]

Looking back, it seems I had more fun on course as opposed to teaching them. Good experiences only and too many to quote. Soldiers from around the world and the best courses available in the worlds armies leaves me feeling fortunate indeed.

Highlights were numerous but I always enjoyed working with the U.S and British. Great lads and much fun to be had.

Only thing I could terminate as aggrevating were the overly gung ho non cooperative types who had to be straightened out. They always came around though and saw the light

Don‘t point that at me and don‘t get lost I think were the two most common phrases. Usually followed by sir! Ha! Still had to call them sir.
Just kidding for all you stripe types. Had great officers on course over the years but they were of course moulded by NCO‘s. I am digging a trench here I think.

 

[kurokaze]

All in good humour Old School

If by chance I actually get to run a basic course
the last thing I want to do is to get swamped w/
admin items. The NCOs are the ones teaching
all the soldier skills while course officers end
up teaching things like Military ethos & justice.

While I realize that NCOs will most likely have
far more experience than officers generally do,
officers still have to lead, and thus should be
more involved in the training of the troops.
Especially those joining up as officer candidates.
Lead by example as they say...

 

[MG34]

Well you got half of it right i would say,yes an officer should lead but on cousre this is done by supervising training and teaching some subjects (Mil Law,QR&O,etc).Fieldcraft,Marksmanship,etc are the province of the Sr.NCO,to put it bluntly an officer is there to be seen and to administer acedemic and administrative disciplne.The mot important job of an officer during a course is to ensure that standards are met and maintained throughout,this cannot be done from a trench,but he has to be removed from the training so he can get a full picture of what is going on.

 

[SpinDoc]

The most important thing a course officer does is overall supervision. Your job is to ensure that a) things are not overlooked -- because let‘s face it, everyone‘s busy and juggling a lot of things and sometimes miss submitting TSRs, etc; b) that the student course files are up to scratch -- not all jr NCOs are created equal... some are better at staff work than others; c) make some difficult decisions when the occasion arises -- deciding if a candidate should be RTU‘d, disciplined (and how to go about it) all in conjunction with the Crse WO... making sure that harrassment doesn‘t occur, etc.

Stuff like that... the amount of work comes and goes, and it depends on the course, the situation, the candidates, the staff...

 

[kurokaze]

Thanks SpinDoc, say is that a second stripe
I see? Congrats if you‘ve made Lt!