Creeping Up to the Green Light

I spent the last few days at a seminar for instructor candidates for AARP driver safety classes.

The seminar was led by two retired public high school principals, a handsome, intelligent, and competent married couple. Generally, they don’t tell their regular Driver Safety classes they were school principals, as it intimidates the students too much.

 

I sprayed my hands with sanitizer throughout the session and did not come down with my wife’s flu, (though I think I have it now.) I told everyone not to touch me. I have no way of knowing if anyone is now sick from being around me.

 

The other four candidates were very interesting and competent. One was a retired army sergeant. At dinner he told us about his military service in Vietnam. He flew as a passenger in small reconnaissance planes a few hundred feet above the ground to map the landscape, as there were no photos from satellites or from unmanned drones in those days. “When the planes returned, they were full of bullet holes, but I never was,” he told us. Though when he got home from Vietnam he got beat up in a bar by people angry about the war.

Another candidate is a police officer from a small town. When he talked about unsafe driving and about often happens when people drive unsafely, he brought a lot of credibility to the discussion. He was very friendly and unassuming, and we all liked him, but we agreed he should not tell his students he is a cop until well into the class.

The third candidate teaches driver training to high school students. I think he is looking forward to working with grown ups.

The fourth candidate teaches employee training sessions for a large supermarket chain. She is very competent and personable and very sharp on her timing.

The instructors directed each of us to make a six-minute presentation on the second day of the class. The warned us, “Everyone talks longer than they think they do.”

Each instructor candidate displayed a unique personality and style, while making a competent, articulate, well-organized presentation. Each ran over his allotted time, except for the supermarket trainer, who was spot on to about five seconds.

At the start of my presentation, I said, “I will cheat,” and put my timer on the podium. However, at dinner the night before, I asked to one of the instructors the answer to a question I could not locate, and said, “With your permission I will cheat.”

He said, “That is the first time one of my candidates has asked me if it is OK for him to cheat. I will say, ‘That is fine.’” Then the cop helped me cheat, also.

So at the start of my presentation, I said, “If the principal of a school and a traffic policeman helps me to cheat, I will call you both as witnesses when I get hauled into court.”

The other presentations were better than mine, although mine was OK. At the end, we (politely) gave each other feedback and criticism. To me, they said, “We were really worried at the beginning of your presentation, but you got there quite well at the end.” I interpreted that as, “For a crazy person, you do quite well.”