Improving Basic
I have 7 points I'd strongly recommend for making the Basic course the best it can be, and addressing the most common complaints I’ve heard from people who’ve had experiences with it. (Other than the Climb Scarcity problem.)
I. There needs to be a well defined “Mountaineers Standard” way of doing each technique in Basic.
The average person who is brand new to a skill needs consistent repetition, and a simple set of rules to follow. How does anyone go from knowing nothing about a complex skill to knowing everything about a complex skill? One step at a time, it's not an immediate leap to "knowing everything." First they need to gain a foothold, by knowing one consistent version of the skill. If an instructor jumps to showing a variation, or a slightly different way of doing things than what they first saw, it could confuse or overwhelm them, which doesn't make it as enjoyable for them. If a student practices with instructor A one day, and then instructor B another day, how do we (the Mountaineers) maintain consistency if the student prefers/requests consistency? By defining a “Mountaineers Standard” version of the technique, that all instructors are at least aware of, and can use as a starting point. How do you make something “well defined?” Not word of mouth. It needs to be documented, clearly written up, including pictures. Perhaps even a new video if someone's willing to put the time into making one. (Though to be fair, videos are a lot of work to create, and are nearly impossible to amend in the future.)
II. It should also be made clear that there’s more than one right way to do everything. “Mountaineers Standard” is a starting point and useful teaching tool, but not something that should be blindly adhered to.
Although teaching starts with a simple set of rules, you and I both know that the skills we're talking about are more subtle and more complex than "Always do this." Of course there's more than one right way to do everything. The students know that too, and they'll be eager to learn variations. We don't want to overwhelm or frazzle someone who's just started, and we don't want to stifle or bore someone who's hungry to know more. It's up to the instructor to be know their audience, and adjust the scope of what they're teaching. (See my other page for more thoughts on good teaching.)
III. Evaluations that grade students as either “expert” or “needs-improvement” should be based on (1) Does it work? and (2) Is it safe? Not on rote memorization of the “Mountaineers Standard.”
In some ways this is repeating the point above it: of course there’s more than one right way to do everything. When it comes to evals in particular, sure, it would be nice if every volunteer evaluator had a knowledge of climbing skills that is both deep enough and wide enough to think critically about any variation they observe and make a judgement call about whether it’s safe enough, and whether or not it gets the job done. However, that’s an unrealistically high bar to expect every volunteer to meet, especially when the enormity of the Basic course requires a very large pool of volunteers in order to get every Basic student through an eval. However, it is a realistic expectation that the field trip leader, and perhaps a few of the area-leaders, are knowledgeable enough to make those kinds of judgement calls. So, tell your volunteer evaluators: if the person they’re evaluating does something different than the “Mountaineers Standard” technique, they should do the following:
1) If you (the evaluator) understand and are able to explain the “why” behind whether that variation is safe/unsafe to the student, great, you’re welcome to make the call and mark the student’s grade book as “expert” or “needs improvement.” But saying “well it’s different than the standard” is not a sufficient answer to “why.”
2) If you (the evaluator) do not understand or cannot explain the “why” behind the variation the student demonstrated, that’s okay, don’t worry! But do NOT fail the student. Instead, have that student repeat their technique for the station’s area-leader, or the field trip leader, and have them make the call, and we'll all learn something new!
IV. For anything defined as “Mountaineers Standard” for the Basic class, it’s better to err on the side of slightly more safe than necessary.
Three reasons for this:
V. Changing what is defined as the “Mountaineers Standard” needs to be done (a) before the course begins, (b) in writing, and (c) communicated well to *everyone* involved in the course: SIG Leaders and their assistants, Field Trip leaders, volunteer instructors, etc.
I must admit, I only realized the critical need for this recently (April 2016.) I used to think if there was consensus in the Climbing Committee on a change, the sooner we could make the change in the courses, the better. However, I’ve realized now that changes to what’s taught mid-course can be extremely disruptive to both students and volunteers at every level. The population of people involved in Basic is so large, that it's hard to 100% disseminate information about the change, and not everyone will get the message, and that sets a lot of people up for failure unnecessarily. There are hundreds of people involved in teaching/taking Basic each year: there's the students themselves, the Basic Subcommittee of the Climbing Committee, the SIG Leaders, the SIG Leaders' assistants, the people at Monday-night practice nights, the Field Trip leaders, the people who are area-leaders for stations within field trips, and all the other dozens of volunteer instructors/evaluators at those field trips. If one person in any instructor-type role isn’t told, and they teach their students the “outdated” way, then those students get failed because of it, it will piss those students off because they were just doing what they were told, it will piss the SIG leader off because their best-effort to help their students unknowingly contributed to them failing, and it will piss everyone off because so much as to be repeated. All of that could do a lot to turn a person off to the Mountaineers. We don't want that, so don't change things mid-course, and do make sure the "Mountaineers Standard" is communicated in generous detail.
Of course we need to be flexible and be willing to update our “Mountaineers Standard” over time, but changes should either be made before the course starts, or be slated for the following year of the course. And it’s not enough to just declare the change, the change must be well explained, either through writing, pictures, or best yet, a new video.
VI. When possible, a curriculum that teaches enough to make a student self-sufficient, without dependency on the Mountaineers, is preferred.
The goal of self-sufficiency is a big draw for a lot of people to the Mountaineers, so when possible, we should teach them the tools to climb without dependency on the Mountaineers, if they choose to use them. There are many examples in years past where friend-groups of strong & solid Basic grads are fully capable of staying safe and succeeding at a glacier climb on their own, without being shackled to the Mountaineers. We (the Mountaineers) are doing well at this at present, so we should be careful not to lose this element. I don't want us to ever fall into a mindset that assumes students will only climb on official Mountaineers-offered climbs, doing so would make the course less-attractive, and it would contrary to the statement that "we are NOT a guide service."
Obviously, there's limitations here, courses have to happen in a limited amount of time and cannot teach everything. I'm definitely NOT advocating for adding anything additional to the Basic course, it's a lot to fit into one course as is. However, if we ever consider removing parts of the Basic course, we should be very reluctant to removing an element that gave students a nugget of self-sufficiency. For example, do not cut skills like a backup rappel method (in case of a lost belay device) or knowledge of a complete pulley system for crevasse rescue.
(Update Sept. 2016: The above was written in early 2016, and it is still my personal opinion, but since then it has come to my attention that this is a contentious point in the Seattle Climbing Committee, many people I respect disagree with me here. The debate is ongoing, but it may be preferred that self-sufficiency, even small nuggets of it, are not taught at all within the Basic course.)
VII. The application process for a course is arguably the most powerful and most influential element of the entire course. It sets expectations, and encourages self-filtering of would-be applicants. The better the application does at selecting the most prepared students to start the course, the more the course is set up for success from the beginning, and the more enjoyable it is for everyone involved.
Always have an application, even if no one in the Mountaineers reads the responses. Think carefully about what expectations the application questions imply. You want applicants to self-filter a bit, to think deeply about their own readiness & commitment-level before signing up for the course.
I. There needs to be a well defined “Mountaineers Standard” way of doing each technique in Basic.
The average person who is brand new to a skill needs consistent repetition, and a simple set of rules to follow. How does anyone go from knowing nothing about a complex skill to knowing everything about a complex skill? One step at a time, it's not an immediate leap to "knowing everything." First they need to gain a foothold, by knowing one consistent version of the skill. If an instructor jumps to showing a variation, or a slightly different way of doing things than what they first saw, it could confuse or overwhelm them, which doesn't make it as enjoyable for them. If a student practices with instructor A one day, and then instructor B another day, how do we (the Mountaineers) maintain consistency if the student prefers/requests consistency? By defining a “Mountaineers Standard” version of the technique, that all instructors are at least aware of, and can use as a starting point. How do you make something “well defined?” Not word of mouth. It needs to be documented, clearly written up, including pictures. Perhaps even a new video if someone's willing to put the time into making one. (Though to be fair, videos are a lot of work to create, and are nearly impossible to amend in the future.)
II. It should also be made clear that there’s more than one right way to do everything. “Mountaineers Standard” is a starting point and useful teaching tool, but not something that should be blindly adhered to.
Although teaching starts with a simple set of rules, you and I both know that the skills we're talking about are more subtle and more complex than "Always do this." Of course there's more than one right way to do everything. The students know that too, and they'll be eager to learn variations. We don't want to overwhelm or frazzle someone who's just started, and we don't want to stifle or bore someone who's hungry to know more. It's up to the instructor to be know their audience, and adjust the scope of what they're teaching. (See my other page for more thoughts on good teaching.)
III. Evaluations that grade students as either “expert” or “needs-improvement” should be based on (1) Does it work? and (2) Is it safe? Not on rote memorization of the “Mountaineers Standard.”
In some ways this is repeating the point above it: of course there’s more than one right way to do everything. When it comes to evals in particular, sure, it would be nice if every volunteer evaluator had a knowledge of climbing skills that is both deep enough and wide enough to think critically about any variation they observe and make a judgement call about whether it’s safe enough, and whether or not it gets the job done. However, that’s an unrealistically high bar to expect every volunteer to meet, especially when the enormity of the Basic course requires a very large pool of volunteers in order to get every Basic student through an eval. However, it is a realistic expectation that the field trip leader, and perhaps a few of the area-leaders, are knowledgeable enough to make those kinds of judgement calls. So, tell your volunteer evaluators: if the person they’re evaluating does something different than the “Mountaineers Standard” technique, they should do the following:
1) If you (the evaluator) understand and are able to explain the “why” behind whether that variation is safe/unsafe to the student, great, you’re welcome to make the call and mark the student’s grade book as “expert” or “needs improvement.” But saying “well it’s different than the standard” is not a sufficient answer to “why.”
2) If you (the evaluator) do not understand or cannot explain the “why” behind the variation the student demonstrated, that’s okay, don’t worry! But do NOT fail the student. Instead, have that student repeat their technique for the station’s area-leader, or the field trip leader, and have them make the call, and we'll all learn something new!
IV. For anything defined as “Mountaineers Standard” for the Basic class, it’s better to err on the side of slightly more safe than necessary.
Three reasons for this:
- Optimizing for the minimum safety necessary is contextual, and therefore knowing “how safe is safe enough” is an intermediate or advanced skill, and should be taught after the “Mountaineers Standard” is well-grasped, in order to avoid overloading/confusing who aren’t ready to absorb that level of detail.
- Someone who’s new to a skill is more likely to make mistakes, and that’s okay. Basic students are more likely to miss-tie a knot, or let go of something they shouldn’t have. They haven’t mastered this stuff yet, otherwise they wouldn’t have signed up as Basic students. Acknowledging that they’re likely to make mistakes, engineer what’s taught to them to compensate when possible. Teach them to tie an extra backup knot, so that their mistakes are embarrassments, but not fatalities. The training-wheels can always come off the bike later.
- Frankly, because statistics! The large size of the Basic course means that the probability that at least one accident will happen per year is higher. Let’s say there’s a 99.9% that a single student will it make through a year of Basic without screwing up something in a way that leads to injury or death. If you have 160 students per year, then you raise that probability to the power of 160, and suddenly you have only an 85% chance that everyone in the class will make it through without injury or death, which is not good enough to me. So if we’re going to have such a big class size, instead we need to push that single-student safety margin way up, two orders of magnitude, to 99.999% safe (a.k.a. seemingly more safe than necessary) in order to achieve even a 99.8% chance that no one class-wide has an injury or death.
V. Changing what is defined as the “Mountaineers Standard” needs to be done (a) before the course begins, (b) in writing, and (c) communicated well to *everyone* involved in the course: SIG Leaders and their assistants, Field Trip leaders, volunteer instructors, etc.
I must admit, I only realized the critical need for this recently (April 2016.) I used to think if there was consensus in the Climbing Committee on a change, the sooner we could make the change in the courses, the better. However, I’ve realized now that changes to what’s taught mid-course can be extremely disruptive to both students and volunteers at every level. The population of people involved in Basic is so large, that it's hard to 100% disseminate information about the change, and not everyone will get the message, and that sets a lot of people up for failure unnecessarily. There are hundreds of people involved in teaching/taking Basic each year: there's the students themselves, the Basic Subcommittee of the Climbing Committee, the SIG Leaders, the SIG Leaders' assistants, the people at Monday-night practice nights, the Field Trip leaders, the people who are area-leaders for stations within field trips, and all the other dozens of volunteer instructors/evaluators at those field trips. If one person in any instructor-type role isn’t told, and they teach their students the “outdated” way, then those students get failed because of it, it will piss those students off because they were just doing what they were told, it will piss the SIG leader off because their best-effort to help their students unknowingly contributed to them failing, and it will piss everyone off because so much as to be repeated. All of that could do a lot to turn a person off to the Mountaineers. We don't want that, so don't change things mid-course, and do make sure the "Mountaineers Standard" is communicated in generous detail.
Of course we need to be flexible and be willing to update our “Mountaineers Standard” over time, but changes should either be made before the course starts, or be slated for the following year of the course. And it’s not enough to just declare the change, the change must be well explained, either through writing, pictures, or best yet, a new video.
VI. When possible, a curriculum that teaches enough to make a student self-sufficient, without dependency on the Mountaineers, is preferred.
The goal of self-sufficiency is a big draw for a lot of people to the Mountaineers, so when possible, we should teach them the tools to climb without dependency on the Mountaineers, if they choose to use them. There are many examples in years past where friend-groups of strong & solid Basic grads are fully capable of staying safe and succeeding at a glacier climb on their own, without being shackled to the Mountaineers. We (the Mountaineers) are doing well at this at present, so we should be careful not to lose this element. I don't want us to ever fall into a mindset that assumes students will only climb on official Mountaineers-offered climbs, doing so would make the course less-attractive, and it would contrary to the statement that "we are NOT a guide service."
Obviously, there's limitations here, courses have to happen in a limited amount of time and cannot teach everything. I'm definitely NOT advocating for adding anything additional to the Basic course, it's a lot to fit into one course as is. However, if we ever consider removing parts of the Basic course, we should be very reluctant to removing an element that gave students a nugget of self-sufficiency. For example, do not cut skills like a backup rappel method (in case of a lost belay device) or knowledge of a complete pulley system for crevasse rescue.
(Update Sept. 2016: The above was written in early 2016, and it is still my personal opinion, but since then it has come to my attention that this is a contentious point in the Seattle Climbing Committee, many people I respect disagree with me here. The debate is ongoing, but it may be preferred that self-sufficiency, even small nuggets of it, are not taught at all within the Basic course.)
VII. The application process for a course is arguably the most powerful and most influential element of the entire course. It sets expectations, and encourages self-filtering of would-be applicants. The better the application does at selecting the most prepared students to start the course, the more the course is set up for success from the beginning, and the more enjoyable it is for everyone involved.
Always have an application, even if no one in the Mountaineers reads the responses. Think carefully about what expectations the application questions imply. You want applicants to self-filter a bit, to think deeply about their own readiness & commitment-level before signing up for the course.
If you agree with me on any of the above points, great! If you disagree, that's great too! Either way, it doesn't matter yet, all we've done is talk about it. None of these changes will happen from just talking about it. We need someone (if not you, then who?) to take ownership of an idea here, and champion it, carry it forward. Come to Climbing Committee meetings. Be the advocate there for the idea you want to see happen, either at the meeting, or more likely by identifying the right person to talk to after the meeting. And more importantly, volunteer to do any work necessary to implement that change. Don't just complain, instead actively work to make things better. If you want to see the change happen, you have to put the time and effort in to make it happen.
Top picture: Camp just below the edge of the Fryingpan Glacier on Rainier, 9/27/2014