This response to John Maizels’ “Toss the Dice with Training” (April CX) is by Paul Matthews.
John brings quite a few issues to the forefront in his blurb
about the reworking of CUE03. After having experience with both this and also
the far more popular industry training courses for electricians, here’s my
$0.002.
John mentions the need to “keep up with technology” in our
training courses. Certainly it’s important for students to be exposed to
current technology otherwise they’ll be useless in the modern workplace.
However learning skills with modern technology is something quite
different altogether.
To consider this more carefully. If you’re a 40 or 50
something industry veteran like me, take a moment to think back into your past
career life and determine where you truly learnt your skills. Chances
are, like me, most of your skill was learnt using grossly inadequate equipment
(by today’s standards) in impossible situations with no budget or training
whatsoever and surrounded by completely ignorant amateurs, many of them
probably considerably less than sane or sober.
Things worked or you crashed and burned. When they worked,
we learned. When they crashed we learned even more. We learned what things did
by playing with them in an imperfect world. In many cases we learned that stuff
could do things that the original designers never imagined (anyone ever used a
disco strobe to light up the port a loos?)
Now fast forward to today. We shove the orange vests
on, “teach” our future crews on the
latest equipment and strive for things to be as much like the “professional
industry” as possible. They pop out the other end knowing how to push buttons,
follow the bouncing ball and make it work. But they still lack the SKILLS which
now separate generations.
Why? Lack of opportunity, that’s why. Our
modern vocational training system is completely starved of the experience
opportunities which existed in spades in the industry 20 to 30 years ago. It’s
not about getting a bunch of the latest gear in a room, getting students to set
it up and make it sound and look great. Anyone can do that.
Give them a horrible, noisy, heavy, unreliable, under
powered and dangerous 20 year old stack of gear. Give them a deadline, light
blue touch paper, stand back and watch your students rapidly gain the SKILLS
THEY NEED to solve problems, work within limits and get the best results from
what they have at hand.
Only by NOT HAVING everything at your fingertips, can you
truly learn how individual components work, why they are there and why we still
use the digital equivalents today. Imagine trying to teach 30 years of
experience to a student in less than a year. That’s what you’re trying to do
with students in CUE03 – and that’s why the industry is not responding to your
calls to “fix” the system. It’s not just that you can’t squeeze this kind of
experience but the fact that even if you could – the opportunities to
experience them in today’s perfect
digital world have long vanished.
Now I’m not advocating that CUE03 include units of
competency on how to tune Concord boxes or focus Patt 263’s. What I WOULD like
to see though is a measure of ability to do the “impossible with nothing”. Sort
of like “Here’s a pair of Mackie 12’ boxes, three mics, a 5 piece band and a
footy field. Now make it sound good”.
Now that’s the sort of “competency” I am interested in as an
employer. Let me worry about teaching them about the new stuff - on our jobs. I need you guys to give them
the opportunities that I can no longer give them myself because we just don’t
do things that way anymore. The stuff that I learnt back when those
opportunities were still everywhere.
Paul Matthews.
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