I teach staff, well I don’t actually teach I ‘train staff’ – is there a difference, I think so, as teachers have a year, a term, a week to teach their students, whereas I have one day, or four days at the most to impart my knowledge to adult learners. This week I was training a team of staff in CCTV practice for my company, it was a small class and normally these classes go very well, although you don’t get that same buzz that you get with a bigger group.

It started badly as one thought they knew everything already, they didn’t, and the others in the group were all from the same office and a little cliquey. Never mind I am an experienced trainer and have worked in the security profession for 25 years and as a trainer for twelve of those years. We did all the normal ‘ice breakers’ to start the class off and to a person they seemed not to want to talk, or were very quietly spoken. As the day wore on things got worse, when I asked the group a question, they sat silently in their seats. While I was talking, they smiled and even laughed at some of my comments, but if I asked them for comment: they clammed up! I tried all the tricks to get them involved and talking, but by the end of day two, they were as quiet as day one. If I have a noisy group, or people in the class who want to be heard above all the rest, that it a breeze to deal with, but the non-talkers are much harder. I love training when I have all the ‘gobby’ ones in my class, the ones who argue with you, debate a point, get passionate about the subject matter, get involved. I run my classes to engender that.

The course finally finished on Thursday and each of the candidates came up to me and told me what a wonderful/great/enjoyable time they had had on the course, strange eh? If I go on a course I will have a good time if I am involved, I get my opinions across, if I debate topics with other course members, but this class were obviously different, I just hope I don’t get too many like this!