From my very brief exposure to the forces, and from my more extensive exposure to comments on this board, especially those made my more senior pers, I've come to notice that courses (at least the earlier ones, BMQ, IAP, ETC) waste huge amounts of time doing nothing.
The hurry-up-and-wait philiosophy is one that IMHO can be learnt at any point in your career
so I'm not sure if its really something that should be instilled from the get go. I Could be wrong however.
I can think of any number of ways that things could be sped up.....
1- new recruits heading out could be measured at the CFRCs or local clothing stores/CFRC, with the order being pre-sent to St Jean. When they arrive, they form a line, the kit is already ready and sized. A few minor exchanges and you are good to go. Save at least half a day here. Even better would be to have them already have the kit before arrival, but I recognize logistics would just never work that way.
2- all paperwork should be completed prior to arrival. Entering this and that, bla bla bla, should be done in advance, at the CFRC or wherever else. All i remember is sitting in huge rooms wasting away time while we entered basic data into computers, such as next of kin, etc.
3- Get rid of weekends off. I recognize that these exist almost even moreso for the staff on course (I can imagine they'd want a life too), but when I was on course, as much as we wanted time away, we also wanted to get the course over and done with and to get on with our training... even reducing time off would be excellent, so long as the time is used for course material.
4- Why does a first aid course take a day, when anyone who was paying the right kind of attention anyway could have gotten the same material down in half? Catering to the lowest common denominator is stupid - the more long and boring you make it, the stupid people are already lost and the smart people dont pay attention because the pace is way too slow.
Im sure there are tons of other suggestions... but honestly.. I remember us all sitting in classes, and then afterwards saying.. "Why did that just take 4 hours, anyone could have covered it in 20 minutes". It almost seemed like since you had to be there 8 weeks (or whatever) anyway, we have to fill the time...
A final week of administration? If you kill that week, and the first week of administrivia.. or even half of each, you at least gain one week of time - which is one more week that the instructors can have free to be back at their regular units, or that you have trained personnel up and ready, or that you have to use for another course. My point here, is that if you could get the same training value in a shorter time period, why arent we doing this to alleviate some of the training backlog?
Looking at it another way; I see constant values given for Reserve training (ie 1 month = reg force basics, plus the delta has to be made up for full reg force equivalency). Well if we can get the basics done in 1 month, and the reg force course is 2 months.... is there really another month worth of delta? (I recognize that my periods are taken from the air, but you get what Im saying...)
Course I could be out in left field.
[Edit: Note I recognize I have limited experience, and thus this represents my opinion only based on my experiences... obviously I am referring to the various indoc training, but I've noticed many other senior members complaining about wasted training]
The hurry-up-and-wait philiosophy is one that IMHO can be learnt at any point in your career
so I'm not sure if its really something that should be instilled from the get go. I Could be wrong however.I can think of any number of ways that things could be sped up.....
1- new recruits heading out could be measured at the CFRCs or local clothing stores/CFRC, with the order being pre-sent to St Jean. When they arrive, they form a line, the kit is already ready and sized. A few minor exchanges and you are good to go. Save at least half a day here. Even better would be to have them already have the kit before arrival, but I recognize logistics would just never work that way.
2- all paperwork should be completed prior to arrival. Entering this and that, bla bla bla, should be done in advance, at the CFRC or wherever else. All i remember is sitting in huge rooms wasting away time while we entered basic data into computers, such as next of kin, etc.
3- Get rid of weekends off. I recognize that these exist almost even moreso for the staff on course (I can imagine they'd want a life too), but when I was on course, as much as we wanted time away, we also wanted to get the course over and done with and to get on with our training... even reducing time off would be excellent, so long as the time is used for course material.
4- Why does a first aid course take a day, when anyone who was paying the right kind of attention anyway could have gotten the same material down in half? Catering to the lowest common denominator is stupid - the more long and boring you make it, the stupid people are already lost and the smart people dont pay attention because the pace is way too slow.
Im sure there are tons of other suggestions... but honestly.. I remember us all sitting in classes, and then afterwards saying.. "Why did that just take 4 hours, anyone could have covered it in 20 minutes". It almost seemed like since you had to be there 8 weeks (or whatever) anyway, we have to fill the time...
A final week of administration? If you kill that week, and the first week of administrivia.. or even half of each, you at least gain one week of time - which is one more week that the instructors can have free to be back at their regular units, or that you have trained personnel up and ready, or that you have to use for another course. My point here, is that if you could get the same training value in a shorter time period, why arent we doing this to alleviate some of the training backlog?
Looking at it another way; I see constant values given for Reserve training (ie 1 month = reg force basics, plus the delta has to be made up for full reg force equivalency). Well if we can get the basics done in 1 month, and the reg force course is 2 months.... is there really another month worth of delta? (I recognize that my periods are taken from the air, but you get what Im saying...)
Course I could be out in left field.
[Edit: Note I recognize I have limited experience, and thus this represents my opinion only based on my experiences... obviously I am referring to the various indoc training, but I've noticed many other senior members complaining about wasted training]
