Instructor at a school

I am in a accredited collage now and my instructor is great. He gives good instruction and wants to know you understand it, he is very PATIENT, shows how it should be done before asking us to do anything and most of all stays very CALM even if one of us misses a gear and stops in an intersection he does't freak out and make us even more nervous. Keep a calm voice and help the student settle back down when a mistake is made and then ask what happened and see if you can fix his/her problem.

This is coming from a student and what I see with my instructor. Best of luck!!!

Oh a couple more things I see from mine. Make it fun for everyone in class, remember we are adults when correcting us and be understanding & approachable. Oh, and we are only a four student class and he does all the instructing also.

 

I have been an instructor and CDL examiner for a school bus outfit before getting into car haul. It can be quite frustrating at times but I found it rewarding, knowing that my group of students knew what they were doing when they left my classroom. I was fortunate enough to work for a company with the right mind set, we did not qualify everyone, I had an average fail rate of 20%. Going with a community college you will be in a better environment for learning, they are in the business of educating and can lose their state accreditation for not providing a quality education so more likely than not your course material will be top notch and you will not have the same problems an instructor at a typical cdl mill has.

One of my fellow instructors for the school district I worked for retired from there after 35 years with them and went to a National training school in NY to teach truck driving, hated every minute of it, he was a quality educator but they wanted everyone rushed through and passed, failure was not an option.

I say go for it, so long as you have the heart of a teacher and the patience of a saint, can remain calm even when you shouldn't be and are a good communicator you will do fine. From reading some of your posts on here I believe you have those qualities. I do miss instructing some days, but most of the time I am satisfied with my current situation.

 

That sounds like the school I went to (and every other one that I've heard about). I went back to my school for a refresher road trip a month after I graduated (it took some time to get on with my employer) and 1/5 of my class was still there. Most had either failed the DMV test multiple times (one guy was downright scary) or were so bad that the instructors hadn't even put them in to test yet. They won't fail out though...the school policy is to keep people until they pass.

 

Please please please if you find one of your future students deciding to sign up with a bad company warn them off from it. Don't let them get fed to the wolves, because they might actually become an outstanding driver if paired with a decent company. You know as well as everyone else how high the turnover is and its mostly because of some student carriers chewing up and spitting out rookie drivers.

 

Well, that certainly shouldn't be a problem. It is obvious to ALL of us here that you are "certifiable!"

I went through an applied technology school here in southern Utah, back in 1996. I believe this was in the first few years of their operation, at least with the "professional driver's" course.

At the beginning of the class I was a part of, there was one instructor, one truck, one trailer. And, if memory serves eight students. (At some point in the class, another instructor was hired.) Same instructor did all the training. He was a very good teacher in many respects, and not so good in others.

He was extremely well spoken, and did an excellent job in the classroom. In the truck, this man was positively a saint. And he must have had brass balls, considering a couple of the students.

The thing that he absolutely was anal about, were the inspections. Now some of us may not have been very good drivers when we came out of that class, but there wasn't a one of us that didn't ace pre-trip.

It was kind of tough at first, before the second instructor came on, as only four could be in the truck at one time, so the other four sort of stood around with one thumb in the mouth, one in the arse and then played "switch." But once the second instructor came on board, then when one group was in the truck, the other was back in the class room again. Worked out pretty well, for the most part.

MAJOR CRITICISM HERE: We had one young married couple. These kids came from money. Hubby's family did anyway. They were continually late coming to class. They were continually late coming back from lunch. And our instructor held the class up to wait for them. I mean this was an everyday thing.

A number of us in the class tried to talk to them about it, and their response was, "oh you guys just go on without us, and we will catch up." So obviously we were not getting anywhere. It pissed me off, as I was paying for this, and we were literally getting screwed out of hours of training. (I'm talking like anywhere from twenty minutes to between forty five minutes and an hour, TWICE a day. Starting time, and returning from lunch time.)

Several of us tried to talk to the instructor about it but were just blown off.

The only other thing that stood out, was the lack of backing practice. (Which, I'm sure was in large part to these two prima donnas.) He was a third party examiner, and made sure that we passed and got our CDLs. But that lack of backing practice, certainly had to hurt a bunch of people. (I've pulled trailers of one type or another all my life, so didn't really have a big problem over it.)

But there can be more to the job than just teaching the class. When it becomes a baby sitting job, you have to be able to put your foot down.

There were two of us in this class that were approached about possibly being hired on as teachers there. Now to me, at that time, that was VERY hard to believe. But it is the way it was. Obviously, I wasn't interested, nor was the other guy.

I see that this school has expanded now to having several trucks. More power to them. I just hope they haven't hired any "instructors" right out of their school. . .

 

I went to a state tech school here in TN for my CDL (7.5 weeks long) and both school KW T600s had a bench seat with seatbelts for four students in place of the bunk bed. The instructor rode shotgun and had his own foot pedal air brake setup.

Kudos for you insisting the students being belted up.

Other drivers told me they sat on the bunk while learning in a for-profit CDL "mill" - no thanks...

 

I'll 2nd what Big Don says...students really need to taught by those who know the in's and out's from experience. Like Don..I have NOT the patience , but my hat's off to you! keep us posted on the journey Good Luck!