Table of Contents:

I. Can we train too much?

II. Upcoming Street Survival Seminars

Can we train too much?

By Dick Fairburn

Not long ago a co-worker was setting up for a federally funded week-long Radar/Lidar Instructor course. The manual for the course filled a four-inch ring binder and included a great deal of complicated math formulas. Just to train a cop how to point a radar unit and pull the trigger? I agree that an instructor needs to know more than the students they will train, but this course was apparently designed to produce someone qualified to be a courtroom expert witness (though I doubt this class alone would qualify someone to stand up to a thorough expert witness challenge).

Another example is the current deadline for senior police and fire commanders to complete high level Incident Command System (ICS) training, specifically ICS300 and ICS400. Having been an ICS instructor for some time, I am better able to comment on the foolishness of these requirements. In particular, ICS400 is intended for Command and General Staff personnel working in a Type 1 event, like Hurricane Katrina. Even when they've sat through all of these mind numbing days of instruction, few commanders really know how to use the ICS effectively.

Yes, in my opinion, we can train too much. These federal requirements that try to turn everyone into a high-level expert simply produce a number of burned out, modestly trained personnel with little more than "book learnin'" on a given subject. Whether the subject is Radar, ICS, or something else, the first stage of training program design must be to determine what the end user TRULY needs to know to be effective. We don't need to teach all of our people how to build a Glock, just how to shoot one!

I break training material into three "Know" categories:

• "Need to know"
• "Nice to know,"
• "Know where to look it up"

The OSHA required annual refresher course on Hazardous Materials serves as an excellent example of how a four-hour class could be (and should be) boiled down to one hour.

"Need to know" material is essential to the task at hand. In our HazMat refresher example, knowing how to look up a material to determine it's dangers (how can this stuff hurt my people?) and evacuation distances (how far do I need to move my people from this stuff?) is crucial and should be the heart and soul of the training. So, knowing how to use the book under stress by looking up the product's name and/or placard number is - "Need to know." In reality, I would estimate that more than 80 percent of the officers attending our Critical Incident classes can't remember how to look up a material in the Emergency Response Guidebook (ERG), even though they have attended the refresher every year of their careers.

Much of the "Need to know" information is pretty dry and boring, so adding a little "Nice to know" information can keep a student's attention. Examples of how officers in their area have been injured or killed at HazMat incidents will always get their attention. Too much "Nice to know" information is generally the sign of an instructor that loves the given subject matter a lot more than their students. Design your courses around the audience you will serve and don't waste their time.

In the case of the annual HazMat refresher, all the hundreds of pages of specific material data in the ERG fall into the "Know where to Look It Up" category. Any instructor that has actually memorized a good deal of the data sheets in the Emergency Response Guidebook is an instructor to avoid. They think "Know where to look it up" material is "Need to know" information. It isn't.

So, let's summarize a sensible HazMat refresher session. Teach the students the various sections of the Guidebook and how to look up a material by both placard number and name. Give them local examples of spilled materials and the bad effects those materials had on emergency responders. Practice, as a group, looking up commonly found materials by both name and placard number. Cover the generic response pages for unknown substances in case a spilled material cannot be readily identified. That will take no more than 30 to 60 minutes. And, since you focused on the primary "Need to know" information (knowing how to look up the "Know where to look it up" information), they will probably remember the lesson and be able to identify a material under the stress of a real incident.

Do you understand my point here? We DO NOT need to teach our students the countless products in the ERG or expect them to memorize details. We DO need to teach them how to use the book under stress. The same principles apply to ICS, Firearms, Control and Arrest Tactics, and on and on.

We need a few genuine experts in every field of law enforcement. We truly need a pool of ICS experts who can build the full organization should a Type 1 event ever hit their locale. But, we need MANY more that have a basic understanding of the organization and a FULL understanding of how to fulfill their particular role at a lower level. We need a FEW "builders" and a LOT of "do-ers." The philosophy that training everyone to the "builder" level will automatically teach them how also to be a "do-er" has been proven wrong time after time.

Police agencies have a finite amount of time and money to contribute to training. Our mission as trainers is to give them the biggest possible bang for that buck. Just as importantly, we need to give our officers the absolute essentials they need to do their job as safely and effectively as possible. I have found that my personal "hard drive" has a finite amount of space available. It seems, as the years pile up, that my hard drive has begun to send unused information to my computer's "recycle bin." And, it gets worse every year. Streamline your training to emphasize the Need to Know information and your officers will thank you for it.

About the author

Dick Fairburn has had more than 26 years of law enforcement experience. He has worked patrol, investigations and administration. Since 1996 he has been with the Illinois State Police serving as a Criminal Intelligence Analyst, as the Section Chief of the Academy's Firearms Training Unit and as the Critical Incident Training Coordinator.

He has a B.S. in Law Enforcement Administration from Western Illinois University and was the Valedictorian of his class at the Illinois State Police Academy. He has published hundreds of articles and a book titled, Police Rifles.


II. Upcoming Street Survival Seminars

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