I am JOHN BROWN, who acquired my basic professional understanding of teaching skills as a primary teacher in Manchester. I then took on the challenge of teaching secondary students, who either had educational problems or who were disaffected by society and the way they were being educated and I introduced CSE courses on driving skills. After some years I moved to Dorset and specialised in teaching students who suffered from dyslexic, dyspraxic, Aspergers (autistic), emotional and behavioural type problems etc. and travelled round many schools supporting these students in their academic studies across the full age range.
Having also been a bus driver, my personal interest has always been based around vehicles and driving, so in 1989 I began to train myself to become an Approved Driving Instructor using my son & daughter and friends as guinea pigs. It was very important for me not to go to a driving instructor college or receive instruction about a particular system of teaching driving as I wanted to build on my teaching experience and teach people about driving rather than instruct. As people are individuals I believe many do not thrive by using a set system of teaching, but instead need encouragement to develop the various skills they have already achieved.
John with his oldest first time success- 75 yrs of age
My professional interest has always been in how people learn, not just what people learn and this view was enhanced when I was tutoring students who had severe dyslexic type problems but were seeking to go onto study at university in spite of their difficulties. At the same time I was teaching some of them to drive and I soon became aware that just as in Education these students required specialist teachers for their educational problems, there were many Learner Drivers who required specialist teachers for their specific driving problems. As I did not know of any, I left school teaching to found my own driving school, catering for any problems which people may have which were not being met.
In order to keep a balance I still teach a few local young people without any obvious problems and a few 'high fliers' who get bored by the uninteresting way they are taught and particularly wish me to take them. The work also developed into helping those of all ages with physical disabilities and emotional problems.
Approved Driving Instructors have to pass three difficult exams at Instructor’s level.
- Theory and Hazard Perception.
- Personal Driving Ability.
- Instruction and Teaching Ability.
ADIs are regularly monitored by the DSA examiners and by law they must display their green licence whilst giving instruction. The pass rate for these exams is extremely low and there are always many Potential Driving Instructors (PDIs) who are struggling to pass these qualification exams and so keep the prices charged in the industry unrealistically low. If charging for instruction these PDIs must display their pink triangular licence. Some of them may be good instructors in real life situations, but they have to "teach" the examiners who role play being learners and this can be very difficult.
I am a NON-SMOKER are the cars are smoke free zones
There will be some readers who have already decided that my emphasis and interests are not for them and that is perfectly understandable as we are all different and learn in different ways. The important point for you is that you find the instructor who you can learn best with and I know that although my methods may be different to the norm, they work well with those who see learning as an individual process which needs to be tailored to their individual learning style rather than the teaching style of the instructor. Learning to drive is the same as any learning and so I still follow the motto I believed in as an SEN teacher, which was;
IF HE DOES NOT LEARN THE WAY YOU TEACH ,
CAN YOU TEACH THE WAY HE LEARNS.
