'I will break your finger' says the instructor to the student

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I agree on the "racist" part. It is becoming a meaningless term as its applied to so many things that have nothing at all to do with race. I also notice the OP did not respond to my question if there was an actual element conducive to racism involved.

Would I instruct this way? No! Absolutely not. There are two basic instructional techniques.

Supportive & instructive. In this technique you encourage correct performance by positive reinforcement & reduce negative traits by explaining why they are bad things. This is done so the student understands, not just follows "Monkey see, monkey do" mindlessly.

The second is more military in its concept. basically "Do it because I'm the instructor & that's the way I say it should be done! (based on the instructor's assumed higher level of knowledge & experience.)

Physical threats have no part, even in jest, in a civilian training program of any kind. The instructor needs what Wal-Mart calls "Corrective Counseling for success". If a physical threat were acceptable he'd be getting a punch in the jaw.
 
Is that any different than when a student inadvertently sweeps someone who says, "If you do that again, I'm gonna' take it personally?"
 
Let's sidestep the race issues, folks. They're not relevant.

I have heard that accusation made simply because the accuser didn't get the result they wanted from an interaction. At this point, we're dealing with a "my friend said this happened" story, and we don't know if that's even remotely what happened.
 
If friend was offended, the simple solution was to stop right there, get a manager, demand money back for reason's stated and find a different place to take his shooting class.

Sounds as though this instructor has just not yet addressed the 'right' person in this threatening 'wrong' way.
 
I think the problem is the syntax, context, and environment which we are not privy to. The instructor, as stated, could have been attempting to use hyperbole in a humorous context, but he failed in communicating his intention. The other option, which has been mentioned and is no less a possibility, is that the instructor is a dip stick.

However, I would agree that bodily threats do nothing to teach and/or correct a mistake which is the opportunity for learning.
 
NoSecondBest said:
Just like sexual harassment. The party in charge needs to be the one to be responsible for what he/she says. It doesn't matter what you thought the mood was, it matters what you said.
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Maybe so, but human relationships tend to be very digital. Zero or one. On or off.

You like the person or they haven't offended you, you tend to assume positive intentions about comments. You don't like somebody, or they've offended you, you tend to assume that any comment without clear meaning carries the most negative possible connotation.

I see it all the time. We don't give people the benefit of the doubt and we assume the worst. Then, we go tell other people about it, giving it the negative spin we feel it deserves.

Those people have nothing to go on but our decidedly negative interpretation and the words themselves.

No context, no background, no relational syntax, nothing.

We get "Look how bad this is, do you think it's bad?" Of course we do, you just told us how it was bad.
 
^+1

We are a society now brainwashed as spring-loaded to take offense at anything, and as such we have become totally milk-toast in our discourse.
"Musn't offend anyone" is impossble, and "I apologize to those I may have offended" has become the new-age mantra.

Balderdash... I'll take a Master Sgt's discourse anytime when it comes to stark range safety events and the lessons to be learned from them. (Women and kids get a freebie or two the first times out --- my mother did teach me some manners.) ;)

I now return control of your televsion set to proper gun range/instructor etiquett.
 
I once heard something somewhat similar, the instructor informed us in no uncertain terms that if we misbehaved with a weapon, he would break our finger taking it away from us, just before he inserted it in a most unapproved storage location!

Since he was a big mean, tough looking dude, who outranked us, we believed him.

If you hire someone to instruct you (and that's what taking a class is), if you hire someone who teaches from the Drill Sargent school of do and don'ts, and you get your feelings hurt, isn't that more a case of caveat emptor than anything else?


oh, and by the way, "racist" is a pretty spurious accusation when you don't provide any other information.
 
My friend is from India. He said he has experienced racism after 9/11. He said he had also been physically assaulted being mistaken from middle east. He said he heard the instructor tell half of the class that they had also been making some other safety mistake, but he says he made that mistake once but this safety mistake once too. He said he put the finger inside the trigger guard but not on the trigger and the pistol was unloaded and pointed towards the paper target in the range. He said the tone of instructor was serious and 'mean'. He said this was his first class and he had never before fired any firearm. He said he had asked questions through out the class and the instructor at times would give vague answers or ignore him. He said at the range, at the start of the range time it was hard to hear the instructor as he spoke too rapidly(for him?) and he could not hear some instructions and others clearly as he was at the back of the line.
He said he wanted to ask the instructor to repeat what he could not hear (at the range) but noticed that through out the class in the classroom when he asked questions, at times the instructor would just ignore his questions.
He said his finger instinctively went inside the trigger guard but not on the trigger and the pistol was unloaded at that time and pointed at the paper target and the instructor was behind him and my friend was trying to ask him a question.
 
From what ChrisinTexas relates, I understand the how the gentleman from India
could have felt, and how the instructor could have (should have) handled
the whole evening differently.

Details, sometimes, do make a difference....
(My mother & manners again) ;)
 
Agreed that now there is an element that might be construed as racism its a possibility. Had we been told all the relevant info earlier the discussion probably would never have come up.

That leads to a possible solution as well, communicating. Not just talking, but actually imparting information in a way that ensures it is understood & acted on, not just heard.

Military training & commercial (read civilian) training need to be different, why? Because they have different goals & you can't just drag a technique from one side to the other. It has nothing to do with manliness or macho stuff, but with getting the training to bear fruit. After all isn't that, in the final analysis the whole purpose of training?

As for the racism I have a couple of hopefully good thoughts to reduce that.

I have a god friend who is Indian. He really thinks he understands & speaks English quite a bit better than he actually does. Because of this there are sometimes misunderstandings that are just a result of him thinking he knows what I'm saying when he has misinterpreted something. Because of that I use an old training verification trick I was taught when in management. Have the trainee explain back to you what he thinks it is you want him to do. It really does head off misunderstandings before they get out of hand.
 
Race = Coloring & other physical features
Culture = Ethics, values, traditions, and social standards/practices

Race ≠ Culture, but we have increasingly come to throw "Race" down as a discussion-ending trump card,
when what really is at issue is Culture -- and we don't want to talk about it.

.
 
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Assuming that the details are correct as presented, which is a pretty big assumption, it sounds like this instructor was pretty lousy in a bunch of ways.

Still though, I'm always leery of making judgements like this for the reason I stated before. The "digital" nature of our interactions tends to color our descriptions and interpretations.

Point being, maybe the instructor was an unprofessional jerk with no business teaching anybody, anything, maybe he only made a little bit of a miscalculation but it colored the friend's entire interpretation of their other interactions, maybe the friend is someone who tends to see racism and bias everywhere he looks and the instructor said something slightly different but a change of a word or two in the retelling fits the friend's bias.

How do we know?
 
Reminds me of an old episode of Gomer pyle where Aunt Bee was upset because Sgt. Carter kept yelling at Gomer instead of being polite. Gomer had to explain to Aunt Bee that calm and polite don't cut it in situations where lives are at stake and that Carter's yelling helped keep his men safe.

Tell your buddy to obey the rules, accept responsibility for his admonishment, suck it up and stop being a crybaby. Many instructors are former or current military, and simply don't know how to make poilite requests when it comes to gun safety and range rules. Bet your buddy only broke that rule once!
 
As Brian said - there is no way from a distance to diagnosis the interaction.

The instructor could have been a bad instructor, racist or whatever. The student could be oversensitive and make a fundamental attribution error. That is seeing a personality flaw that may not be due to the local behavior.

We don't know. Another possibility and well known is that an instructor will decide to pick on one student to show dominance and scare the rest of the class.

There are clear examples of such and of racism and sexism in weapons training.

Is there anymore to be said? We can't diagnosis what happened. We serve no purpose by insulting the student.

I'll keep this open - but the next comments need not to rehash or be silly speculations.

Glenn
 
There was no intention to insult the student. Just an observation that each side has something to input. The nature of what BOTH sides input affects the way the scenario plays out. Usually when something like this gets broken down & all the facts laid out its frequently a 50/50 or 40/60 breakdown at the end of the day. Rarely is one side 100% correct & the other 100% in error.

Students aren't supposed to be knowledgeable or experienced, if they were the wouldn't need educating. Instructors are supposed to educate & train. To do this & have it work both sides need to fully realize the position of the other party.

The instructor needs to allow for a lack of experience & skill as part of the trainee's behavior. Sometimes if there seems to be a communication issue it needs to be addressed. The Student needs to respect the information & sometimes criticism given as part of the training process. If the student isn't prepared for training he needs to re-evaluate all of his skill set, including a realistic appraisal of his communications skills. That way he can participate more effectively.
 
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It shouldn't matter whether he's former military, and "doesn't know how to be polite" or not. That is simply is unprofessional. There's a big difference between forgetting to say thank you, and threatening bodily harm on some one. No one wants to admit it, and I'm not gonna throw my resume and life story out there but I have find that leadership style is rarely effective when it matters anyway. Works well in basic training..that's about it. Anywhere else, save it Walker Texas Ranger.

Guy needs to go see a therapist. Get rid of his distorted communication style that he think s is tough, and learn how to talk to people. Doesn't matter what the student did. A place full of loaded firearms is no place to be threatening to assault people, and as an instructor I'm pretty sure he shouldn't be an advocate of threatening violence on people whenever you feel like it. Usually I don't get super opinionated like that..sorry, I just have no time for guys like that.
 
I'm sorry your friend has had bad experiences, simply due to who, where, and when he is. Unfortunately, he's far from alone in that regard.

Racist? possibly, but I think it much more likely he is using that word improperly, as so many do these days. I am constantly reminded of Montoya's line from The Princess Bride, "I do not think that word means what you think it means.."

the dictionary has clear definitions, and while both involve race, "racism" and "bigotry" are not the same thing, and are not interchangeable.

The instructor your friend chose was a jerk. And, I'm sure, as a result of his "style" many of his students are not getting good value for their money. FIRM is necessary. Antagonistic is not.

I hope your friend got something useful from the class, despite the manner of his instruction. And I really hope he finds a different instructor, one who understands people, as well as firearms. They are out there.
 
Racist? possibly.....
Click to expand...

Really? In this case I think you could only infer racism if there is a long standing practice in India of violently breaking an innocent person's finger because they are of a lower caste or something like that; and if the instructor knew of such a practice.
 
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