War Stories in Teaching – Rory Miller

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Going back to Jeff’s Rules: Everything you teach must have a tactical purpose.
Corollary to that, the way you teach must have a purpose as well. How you teach must serve the purpose of teaching. This is about getting stuff into your student’s heads, not showing what is in yours. This is about what your students can do after the class, not what you did a decade ago,

I recently watched a very well known instructor. He told a lot of war stories. To hear him tell it, he had participated at levels of violence you can only imagine, no matter who you are. And all of his experiences were special. You could say, “I’ve tried X and it worked about 20% of the time” and he would cut in with some graphic story implying that you had never done it as right, as hard, as harrowing as he had. You’ve struck testicles with no effect? Well, he’d eaten them and by gawd that always worked, son!

By the end of the weekend, the students were visibly uncomfortable whenever this instructor stepped up to teach. Telling outrageous stories to a point might validate you. But after a certain point, it becomes easy to disbelieve.

Years ago, Marc MacYoung (I don’t remember the exact quote) wrote about a someone asking him why he laughed when a friend was maimed. He said something to the point of,  ‘You can laugh or you can cry, but if you cry you’ll never stop.’ The humanity in that phrase struck me. I’ve been to too many funerals. I laugh, and I would tell my rookies, “You can take the job seriously or yourself seriously, but never both at the same time.” You have to be laughing at something. Always. Because the other direction is madness.

I don’t tell a lot of war stories when I teach. The point of the class is what the students can do at the end of it, not what I did in the past. But I tell a few, specific ones for specific reasons. And almost all of them are about failure. Where things didn’t work. What I learned.

My war stories are all about what I learned. And the subtext is clear: I’m just an ordinary, average guy who has been in some weird places. You can be better than me. Hell, I expect and demand that you surpass me. Otherwise you are insulting my teaching ability.

To the other instructor, his war stories were an ego fest. “I’m cool. You could never possible understand or exceed me. Therefor you must listen like children, not like the adults that you are. Bow in awe.”

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