Am I culturally deprived because I have never, in my entire life, taken a single apple to a single teacher? After all, there are people who believe the only way to get ahead with teachers is to bribe them for attention. Of course, the ultimate outcome to that behavior is becoming the teacher's pet, the person who receives a good grade regardless of the work performed or the effort applied.

I will bet that you have had your fair share of teachers in your career. Moreover, many of you have turned into teachers. It's a noble profession, but it does have its drawbacks. For example, talking isn't teaching, and telling good war stories isn't teaching, either. Teaching is getting people to change their thoughts or behaviors based on new knowledge.

What got me thinking about this topic was a recent workshop from a nationally known guru. I attended the workshop with a professional friend of mine, and we paid a fairly significant sum of money to be in attendance. The program started at about 9 a.m. By the time of the first coffee break, I noticed my partner's foot jiggling and I realized that I was having an interesting tingling sensation in the back of my neck — I think it was boredom.

Now this particular person was well known for his writings. Quite frankly, he still is a heck of a writer, but he was a really lousy teacher. He forgot that his theory wasn't as important as our acceptance of it. This is a lesson that we in the fire service can't afford to forget when it comes to changing behavior. As we attempt to improve our fire departments through education and training, it's not important what we say or do, but it is important that others act on that information.

If you have been reading this column for a while, you know I often compare one attribute against another. In this particular case I would like to talk about the two types of focus that effect how a teacher delivers course materials.

A teacher's focus can be mapped along two lines: student focus and expectation of knowledge. For example, we can move from where there is no student focus to the point where there is nothing but student focus, and we can note a point where there is very little knowledge needed all the way to where the knowledge base is all encompassing. The confluence of these behaviors can be divided into four distinctive areas.

1. Low student focus, low knowledge expectation

   Here there's a limited amount of academic theory and very little concern about whether students learn. When I was going to college we used to refer to such a class, somewhat pejoratively, as a “basket-weaving course.” Even if you took the class and learned how to weave a basket, it really didn't make much difference in the rest of your life.

   An area of academic pursuit that falls into this area isn't much more than recreation. If there are very few critical thinking skills associated with the course, then there is very little theory. If there's no performance by the individual taking the class, then there's very little student focus. It doesn't matter whether you get a grade, but whether you come away from class with a new skill, new knowledge or a new ability.

2. Low student focus, high knowledge expectation

   This is the Einstein box, where the theory prevails but the performance of the student is somewhat irrelevant. You are on your own when you take this kind of class. In thinking about this particular type of educational experience, I can recall a course I took in community college where the instructor had a reputation for failing half of the class. His other claim to fame was that he would run a significant number of people out of the class by the first quarter.

   Focusing totally on theory, however, does have a certain amount of merit. This is where great ideas face their greatest challenges, as witnessed by the recent movie A Beautiful Mind. The abstract aspects of these educational experiences push back the borders of knowledge. However, we have very few courses with this perspective in the fire service. I think the closest I have ever come to this type of education was in a class on hydraulics and another on tactics and strategies. My hydraulics teacher brought formulae to us as if he were coming down a mountain, and the person from whom I learned tactics and strategy almost made it feel that it was a privilege to learn the theory from his lips.

3. High student focus, low knowledge expectation

   Here is what I call the vocational box, which is where the fire service lives an awful lot. Let's face it: There aren't many in-depth critical thinking skills involved in learning the knowledge needed by an entry-level firefighter. The focus is on the students and their performance, not academic theories. They need to know how to do things, not to understand why.

   To balance the lack of challenging work, we've been known to somewhat arbitrarily discipline probationary firefighters to impress on them how important it is to do a good job. It's too bad we don't ask them to live up to that after they finish the academy.

4. High student focus, high knowledge expectation

   I call this the think-tank, where you go to receive an education that allows you to stretch beyond the borders of the knowledge you learned in the classroom. Here the competition is not between students, it's between ideas. This is where the fire service's courses of instruction that deal with management and leadership reside.

What type of teacher are you? Do you teach theory without looking in students' eyes to see if they understand? Or are you so focused on ensuring nobody fails that you dumb down the theory so there's no comprehension of the framework behind the idea? One of the best ways of evaluating where you stand is to ask yourself the following questions:

• Do you want people to know why they do something versus how they do something?
• When people leave the classroom, can they actually put the information to work?
• Are students' grades a reflection of their ability to perform?
• Given a scenario, will students be able to resolve it by building on what was learned rather than by rote?

When I first took instructor training some 35 years ago, my mentor was Carlton Williams. Williams, Jerry Jones, James Miedl and some of the early instructor pioneers constantly harped on “improving performance.” One teacher advised me to remember one day that “Those who can, teach; those who can't show a movie!” Another advised me that the time preparing for a classroom presentation should be double the time it takes to deliver it. A third suggested that if your students aren't surpassing your own efforts, then you aren't challenging them hard enough.

That's what it's all about, raising the bar. If you're going to be a teacher, teach. Otherwise you become an audio/visual producer. If your students struggle with your tests because they're not focused on the learning objectives, then you are not a teacher.

I never did give any of my teachers an apple. However, I have given many of them acknowledgment as my career has unfolded. The true teachers were the ones who made me work hard to earn their respect. They were also the ones who knew the theory backward and forward. I'll bet you have one or more of those people in your background, too.

If you're currently teaching in the fire service, more power to you. You have the potential of leveraging your own knowledge many, many times through the minds of others. If you are not a teacher but a leader in the fire service nonetheless, tip your hat in the direction of those who mold the minds of our future fire leaders — the teachers.

A 40-year veteran of the fire service, Ronny J. Coleman is the president of the Fire & Emergency Television Network, which features career development and succession planning in its Command Transfer series. He has served as fire chief in Fullerton and San Clemente, Calif., and was the fire marshal of the State of California from 1992 to 1999. He is a certified fire chief and a master instructor in the California Fire Service Training and Education System. A Fellow of the Institution of Fire Engineers, he has an associate's degree in fire science, a bachelor's degree in political science and a master's degree in vocational education.