My Thoughts on Rider Education (long)
Posted: Wed Jan 28, 2009 3:42 am
These are the things that I see contribute or retract towards motorcycling or any skill as a whole:
Talent: A natural proficiency in what it is you are doing.
Some people tend to pickup certain things faster than others. For whatever reason nobody knows but these people usually rise to the top quickly on their own merits.
However there are plenty of people who think they possesses the talent to do anything and everything. I'll get into that later.
Education: Provides you with the ability to perform skills.
People who seek to educate on their own merit are often fantastic people. If I had to pick I'd rather be friends with over-educators (even though they are more annoying) than under educators. Why? Well I hate ignorant people, there I said it.
Just to clarify, there is a fine line between ignorance, and just being dumb.
Dumb is Jessica Simpson
Ignorant is someone who is a member of the KKK
Under-Education: Due to a lack of not caring or thinking you have great talent. Someone just skirting by. You know who these people are. You either work with them, or ride with them, or call them on the phone for technical support.
These people usually don't care or just want enough information to get by. Normally it's because they don't feel they really need anymore help because they are naturally gifted and everything they touch turns to gold.
These people I believe are the people who will most likely be involved in high speed crashes or drink and ride etc.
Over-Education: People who are absolutely obsessed with being 100% perfect. These people will over think everything.
You know who these people are. The people who take 30 minutes to pickup which color stapler will go with their desk best. They throw milk out 2 days early because 0.1% of the time some sort of bad reaction can happen that kills 0.00001% of the population. They know all this because when they bought the fridge for the first time in their life they bought books on "Dairy Mechanics" and took a weekend course at the local community college entitled "The Dangers of Dairy in your fridge!" in order to greater understand this menace.
These people are most likely to get injured when a situation is presented to them that requires quick thinking such as emergency braking to avoid a collision infront of you.
Once they realize this situation is happening they quickly, but carefully, reach into their back pocket and find the list of instructions that tells them exactly what to do. Once they begin reading they end up smacking face first into whatever it is stopped short in front of them.
Then they create a Story Board and a Venn Diagram with a Flow Chart kicker to greater understand how they can avoid this in the future. Possibly form an investigative panel with their Over Thinking friends.
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If you're still with me and haven't replied TLDR!!!11!!! You're probably going "So what are you saying here Brackstone?"
Well basically what I'm saying is what I think we really need is, ugh I think I'm gonna die when I say this, positive reinforcement. Oh phew I'm still alive, I felt like such a optimist when I said that and I'm a pretty big pessimist.
Why am I saying this?
Because under-educated people will always skip out on any safety training as long as it's optional. But over-educators will always opt for that training. So what we need to do is give the Over-Educators positive reinforcement and make them feel good about riding! Help them feel safe so they will abandon their obsessive nature and just learn to relax and enjoy the ride!
Talent: A natural proficiency in what it is you are doing.
Some people tend to pickup certain things faster than others. For whatever reason nobody knows but these people usually rise to the top quickly on their own merits.
However there are plenty of people who think they possesses the talent to do anything and everything. I'll get into that later.
Education: Provides you with the ability to perform skills.
People who seek to educate on their own merit are often fantastic people. If I had to pick I'd rather be friends with over-educators (even though they are more annoying) than under educators. Why? Well I hate ignorant people, there I said it.
Just to clarify, there is a fine line between ignorance, and just being dumb.
Dumb is Jessica Simpson
Ignorant is someone who is a member of the KKK
Under-Education: Due to a lack of not caring or thinking you have great talent. Someone just skirting by. You know who these people are. You either work with them, or ride with them, or call them on the phone for technical support.
These people usually don't care or just want enough information to get by. Normally it's because they don't feel they really need anymore help because they are naturally gifted and everything they touch turns to gold.
These people I believe are the people who will most likely be involved in high speed crashes or drink and ride etc.
Over-Education: People who are absolutely obsessed with being 100% perfect. These people will over think everything.
You know who these people are. The people who take 30 minutes to pickup which color stapler will go with their desk best. They throw milk out 2 days early because 0.1% of the time some sort of bad reaction can happen that kills 0.00001% of the population. They know all this because when they bought the fridge for the first time in their life they bought books on "Dairy Mechanics" and took a weekend course at the local community college entitled "The Dangers of Dairy in your fridge!" in order to greater understand this menace.
These people are most likely to get injured when a situation is presented to them that requires quick thinking such as emergency braking to avoid a collision infront of you.
Once they realize this situation is happening they quickly, but carefully, reach into their back pocket and find the list of instructions that tells them exactly what to do. Once they begin reading they end up smacking face first into whatever it is stopped short in front of them.
Then they create a Story Board and a Venn Diagram with a Flow Chart kicker to greater understand how they can avoid this in the future. Possibly form an investigative panel with their Over Thinking friends.
-------------------------
If you're still with me and haven't replied TLDR!!!11!!! You're probably going "So what are you saying here Brackstone?"
Well basically what I'm saying is what I think we really need is, ugh I think I'm gonna die when I say this, positive reinforcement. Oh phew I'm still alive, I felt like such a optimist when I said that and I'm a pretty big pessimist.
Why am I saying this?
Because under-educated people will always skip out on any safety training as long as it's optional. But over-educators will always opt for that training. So what we need to do is give the Over-Educators positive reinforcement and make them feel good about riding! Help them feel safe so they will abandon their obsessive nature and just learn to relax and enjoy the ride!
Okay, so what are you saying? And does this tie in to the discussion in a previous thread about how to get more people to participate in rider training, which, when you alluded to starting a new thread, is what I thought you meant.
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