Learning to Learn Instead of Learning to Teach

Pictured above you see a majority of Michigan's Child Passenger Safety (CPS) instructors at the completion of a two-day development conference in Southfield last week.

It takes 32 hours to bake a new nationally certified Child Passenger Safety Technician (those people that do the child safety seat inspections), and then years of practice to get to some level of confidence. It takes certified and practiced instructors to run plan and lead those classes and then work to keep the Technicians re-certified every two years.

So, being a certified CPS instructor means that we have the answers and are really good at this stuff, right? Well, last week we found out that we (or at least I) were not as smart at this stuff as we thought. Our Michigan coordinator arranged for us to attend a development conference where we learned how much more we need to learn. How did this make me feel? It made me thrilled to plan and execute our next training classes.

Yes, we picked up a great deal of excellent technical information about crash dynamics, vehicle safety equipment and new child safety seat technology. But, perhaps more importantly, we spent an entire day talking about adult learning and how to be more effective instructors/mentors. We were learning how to learn.

You see, a CPS Technician doesn't install child safety seats and so the instructors are not out to just bake fresh batches child seat installers. A CPS Technician educates caregivers so that they can take responsibility for safely transporting their children. Since four children 0 - 4 are killed in motor vehicle crashes each day, and 529 injured, this is a pretty significant service. Instructors need to motivate new instructors.

So, have a look at the picture and see a group of Michigan citizens that have child passenger safety education as a passion and are now a little more informed about how to share that passion and technical knowledge.