DarkSideDE

Today I received a request from a brand new instructor. He took the PCA National Instructor's Course and was given a Green Student for his first time out.

I know there are two school's of thought here, but I also figured this would be a good discussion for us.

One school of thought would be give them a Green student.
A green instructor gets a green student. After all, neither of them will know if the other one is doing it right....

The other is give them a Blue student.
A green student needs to learn the line, understand the flags, learn to be aware and observant, etc. etc. etc. A Blue student has been through that, so this leaves the blue student in the hands of someone who can help them progress and allows the new instructor to concentrate on instructing.

I'd love to hear your opinions on the topic.

Brian P

This is a trick question. The reason I say that is that there are many instructors that can't effectively teach a blue student, and this has little to do with how many years the instructor has been instructing. Some blue students are quite advanced and it takes an expert driver/instructor to effectively teach them.

So, without knowing more about both the instructor and the student, the only choice is a green a green student.

DarkSideDE

Not a trick question.

Let's firm it up a bit.

New Instructor. Maybe 0 to 1 DE behind them.
Blue Student - just promoted out of Green.

Hope that will clear it up.

We wouldn't want a new instructor being able to think they can sign off a Blue to solo - okay? If you think of any thing else that needs to be clarified... fire away...

LDadrenaline

they should be given any student. I became a chin instructor a few months back and have had 4 students so far. 2 of them were brand new to the track. If the "new instructor" doesnt know the track well enough to be able to teach the line as well as keeping their student calm and aware, then maybe they shouldnt be an instructor.

BobbyC

Any student! If the instructor can't instruct, then he shouldn't be designated as such...

bad soden

Was just in this boat. Local PCA needed instructors I said I'd help. I've been doing DE's 3 years maybe 50 or so events.

The event was at my home track so I had lots of time on track knew the line ... ect. I wanted and got a green student. My thinking was being both of our first time doing this I could be of more help going over beginner stuff. It worked student got better and I got better. I'll instruct again and he'll do another track event so win win.

Brian P

It still really depends on the instructor. Basically, anybody should be able to instruct a green student as a typical green student knows practically nothing. An instructor has to cover the following (and I'm sure I'm forgetting a lot)

1) Flagging stations
2) The "line"
3) Passing etiquette
4) Straight line braking, staying on the gas through the turn
5) Looking ahead and how it relates to smoothness

As I said, I'm sure there is more, but this is already a lot to work on in a 2 day or 3 day event. Any instructor (and most solo students) should be able to easily handle this.

A blue student may have very subtle things that need to be fixed, or it may be plainly obvious.

I can generalize and say that any instructor should be able to handle a green student. I can't generalize and say that any instructor can handle blue students.

Giacomo

Either student should be fine but if I had to choose I would say give the newbie instructor the Green student for the reasons mentioned by Brian.

Larry Herman

Based upon that criteria, there would be very few instructors, because there aren't that many out there that can work with, say, an advanced White student. It takes years of instructing, and some innate ability (which cannot be taught) to instruct at that level. So my answer is to match the novice instructors with the novice students. If they aren't ready for that, they never should have been made instructors in the first place.

jscott82

I would say green student. A newbie instructor still needs to refine/learn “how” to instruct (not “what”). Yes as a newbie instructor you know the technical, “what" (flags, line, car control, etc, etc, etc). But you still need to develop the "how" (how to communicate effectively, when to talk when to shut up, hand signals, etc, etc…), developing your own style and getting comfortable in the passenger seat. My feeling is: I would rather see a newbie instructor figuring this all out at 5/10ths with a green student rather than at 8/10ths with a gun slinger blue student.

fhp911

I'm on board with the GREEN crowd.

APKhaos

PCA National Instructor training is just the first step in a fairly long process, of course. Like most of what we do, it takes a lot of seat time to become a good instructor. Depending on how your club/CI etc handles this part of the learning curve it can be anything from consistent mentoring for several months to 'Here are your two students".

Freshly trained instructors come into our Instructor Candidate stream, where they are assigned a mentor every weekend, and it may be several months before they graduate as full instructors. Some don't.

Its also something that a freshly trained instructor can [and should, if he's smart] do something about. Finding a few highly regarded and effective instructors is not hard in most clubs. Talking to them about technique, handling different types of students, etc is probably the best way to mine the golden vein of their experience.

The new instructor who thinks he knows it all is just as dangerous as the new student who thinks the same way.

I agree that Green students are best for inexperienced instructors for the same reasons that Larry and others have mentioned.

Van

Usually it makes sense to give a brand new instructor a brand new student...

Things will tend to happen the slowest (giving the instructor time to react) and, as long as the student has a good time and comes back, there will be time in the future to "re-teach" any mistakes that were taught.

bobt993

Green, goals are simple as Van pointed out. Keep them safe and the speed down. BTW a newly starting instructor can be pretty on top of what to expect/do if their PCA instructor course was well run.

Qwickrick

Green student for green instructor....there is a big learning curve for instructing, as any experienced instructor will tell you. You don't want to put a green instructor in a GT3 RS or a Turbo first time out.

CVR, my home region, has "senior instructors" who we use for checkout rides for advancement to higher run groups as well as mentoring instructor candidates. Instructors need right seat time as well as students needs left seat time.

Last week, CVR was at WGI and we put a instructor into every white run group car, as for many of them, it had been way too long without any critiqueing of their driving. Feedback from both the instructors and the drivers was overwhelmingly positive.