AFTER JOINING the fire service, you will eventually transition to a position of an instructor, a mentor, or an advisor. The title itself is almost irrelevant because the function is the same-learning how to prepare a young firefighter to be an old firefighter.
Just as being an instructor doesn’t necessarily require a title, learning isn’t necessarily confined to regularly scheduled classroom lectures or drills that only take place at your fire tower. Teaching and learning in the fire service can take place anywhere, at any time. Arguably, most learning happens while you’re sitting on an apparatus bumper waiting for a call to come in, discussing the previous call, latest technique, or newest protocol to come along. Instructing doesn’t just begin with first-year firefighters-it can start much earlier than that.
For some adolescents, informal training in the fire service can begin when they’re simply around their firehouse family. More formally, training in one’s early teens can occur through a program involving Explorer posts or junior firefighters. These programs need instructors who can teach young firefighters while navigating the nuances of running a chapter or post of an organization geared toward young adults.
Many fire instructors have a natural and instinctive way to simplify material, which allows others to grasp and learn a specific concept or skill. Some instructors may need training to help them relate better to a wider audience, one that includes young adults. Either way, identifying the origins of teaching and learning theories will always provide an instructor with the means to create a more developmentally proper drill, ultimately leading to higher retention rates for the fire service.
Adolescent Psychology: Maslow’s Hierarchy
We usually see Maslow’s hierarchy depicted as a pyramid with the first level, satisfying physiological needs, at the base. When you plan a drill-especially for younger firefighters-take those physiological needs into account. These include basic human needs: hunger, thirst, and using the bathroom. All students, but especially those in the fire service, will pay more attention once their physiological needs are satisfied.
Physiological Needs
Here are two important ways to ensure adolescents’ needs are met.
- Identify where the bathrooms are in your firehouse and at your training tower and establish usage rules. If firefighters are hungry or need some water, make sure they can step aside and get something to eat or drink quickly and return to the group. If it is going to be a hot, sunny day, then plan for part of your drill to take place in a shaded area. More specifically, advise that the bathroom can be used at any time and that trainees can do so without disturbing other participants. Adolescents who are used to stricter rules in school will welcome this trust in their independence.
- Understand that hunger is a layered issue. Fire instructors are not there to cater to every perceived problem junior firefighters may have. To a certain extent, you may need to take a stricter approach at times. Advise them to bring something to eat during breaks. Or plan your drill for a time when participants aren’t looking for a break-like right at the beginning of the day.
Safety and Security
When you’re planning a drill that includes adolescents, pay special attention to both physical and psychological safety. This includes protecting trainees from bullying and sexual harassment. Adolescent firefighters and their parents must know that their safety is your priority.
While adult firefighters understand the inherent danger in their work, adolescents may not make that connection right away. Early on, emphasize safety-not danger.
Precautions include having enough instructors for any live fire drill or an adequate safety line for bailouts. Safety goes even deeper for younger firefighters. Require all instructors to take a youth protection course and to have both male and female instructors on hand. Diverse instruction serves not only as a safety feature but also as an inspiration for women in the fire service, which is generally a male-dominated profession.
A Sense of Belonging
The need to feel love and belonging in Maslow’s theory has been written with the fire service in mind. This need is about finding a place that provides a sense of belonging, a sense of family where there is not only acceptance but also a connection and a bond. Because teamwork is necessary on any given call or drill in the fire service, this need is satisfied.
Self-Actualization
The fire service isn’t easy. It’s not an “everybody gets a trophy” organization. You must work at it. When you achieve success, the feeling of accomplishment is second to none.
Self-actualization is defined as the desire to be the most you can be, to fulfill your potential. One of the best aspects of the fire service is that it includes a role for every age group. You’ll also find room in the fire service for multiple occupations— administration, legal, finance. The sky’s the limit relative to self-actualization.
Erickson’s Eight Stages of Development
Combine Maslow’s hierarchy with Erickson’s eight stages of development, another concept of adolescent psychology, and you can begin to put together a drill specifically suited for this age group. This drill will stay with them forever. Erickson’s stages of development span a firefighter’s entire life. Parts of each stage can be seen in the microcosm of firefighter development.
The eight stages include the following:
- Trust vs. Mistrust.
- Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt.
- Initiative vs. Guilt.
- Industry vs. Inferiority.
- Identity vs. Confusion.
- Intimacy vs. Isolation.
- Generativity vs. Stagnation.
- Integrity vs. Despair.
Here’s a closer look at these stages.
- Trust vs. Mistrust
Humanity’s initial experience with trust is seen during infancy, as newborns begin to trust their parents to care for them. An instructor can also view the start of one’s training as the infancy stage, where both the instructor and student must learn to trust each other. With all of its considerable risks, the fire service is the perfect staging ground. Success is largely based on a foundation of trust.
- Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt
Once firefighters learn to trust their instructors, they must learn to deflect shame and this concept is where the fire service learning model of “I do, we do, you do” comes from. With this model, autonomy is an almost guaranteed outcome, as the firefighter works beside the instructor to master a particular skill. At this stage of training, the learning model also encourages self-reliance, which could lead young adults to doubt their own abilities. Ultimately, officers who believe in their decisions on the fireground see more success.
- Initiative vs. Guilt
An instructor has to foster motivation and get firefighters to be successful right out of the gate. When you design a drill, be sure to introduce initiative. Down the line, you’ll see that you’ve developed self-motivated firefighters who will seek additional training on their own.
Limit guilt. Encourage trainees with positive messages. Even when you have criticism to share, always start by pointing out something the firefighter did correctly and then move on to items that need improvement.
- Industry vs. Inferiority
Think about the wordindustry in terms of hard work. Tying a figure-eight knot to haul an uncharged hoseline to a second-story window requires hard work to not only master the skill of tying a certain knot but also to use that knot. Feeling trusted and able to do this will raise a firefighter’s confidence level dramatically.
Meanwhile, failure to complete a skill or being faced with constant negative criticism creates feelings of inferiority. Drills must reinforce industry to build a can-do attitude and demeanor. To accomplish this, as an instructor, you never give up on being a firefighter.
- Identity vs. Confusion
Young firefighters must feel like they belong. This begins with uniforms and gear. Although finding gear that fits a new firefighter perfectly might be a challenge, it’s worth the effort. Oversized gear doesn’t give young firefighters the sense that they belong. They need to feel they are properly equipped for a particular drill. In fact, at a time when adolescents are actively seeking their niche, having ill- fitting gear may cause younger firefighters to question whether they even want to be firefighters. If they require formal shirts for use in a parade or even more informal polo shirts for work details in the public eye, make sure they have what the rest of the company has. You want them to walk tall and look sharp.
- Intimacy vs. Isolation
As an instructor, you must remember that no matter what happens in life, the company will still exist and accept firefighters back when they are ready. A role exists for every age group.
A smart approach for an instructor is to make sure that the Explorers or junior firefighters know the company will still be there regardless of the personal time commitments they may have. At this stage in their lives, teenagers will begin to enter long-term partnerships and close friendships that may take considerable time, limiting their participation in the fire service. If an instructor tries to force competition between the fire service and personal commitments, it is more likely the fire service will end up taking a back seat, so be patient during this developmental period.
It is important to note that participation in the fire service also decreases as young adults begin their own families, which makes the role of the instructor even more important. If Explorers know, as adolescents, that the fire service will always be there for them, then they will also know this concept as young adults.
- Generativity vs. Stagnation
At some point, every firefighter falls into the role of instructor. Comparatively, this stage usually occurs in mid-life.
It’s characterized by the desire to pass along knowledge and experiences. For a junior firefighter, it is considered midtraining, relative to a junior program, prior to joining the company as an adult firefighter. Usually, officer positions are prominent in Explorer posts, and the instructor encourages and instills leadership skills by having those junior officers mentor the new recruits while they continue to learn.
The best way to improve yourself is by teaching others. The juniors should be able to recognize, even at this early stage, that they have learned valuable skills. By recognizing the benefits of mentorship, the instructor gains valuable insight. Mentorship provides an opportunity to make sure the juniors don’t stagnate and refuse to improve themselves.
- Integrity vs. Despair
Integrity is the ability to look back on your training with pride and without regret. Juniors may move on to other activities and careers. But if the instructor emphasized that the training received and the drills completed can be applied as life skills beyond firefighting, then those junior firefighters will always look back on their time as a positive learning experience.
Now, apply that to a real-life situation. Suppose that your district needs a new firehouse and community approval. The firefighters who trained under your instruction are likely going to vote yes because the drill you designed provided a skill that helped them navigate their final exams in college or another important life event. The feeling of despair is the opposite. This is the feeling that the time spent as a firefighter was wasted time.
For an instructor, there is no greater compliment than when the students are discussing a drill beyond the lesson itself, around the dinner table or hanging out with friends.
Imagine overhearing this:
Friend: “What did you do this weekend?”
Firefighter: “I learned howto use a radio to call out a Mayday!”
What attracts and keeps young firefighters is an activity that is specific to firefighting—a learned skill that none of their friends have.
Hands-on Drills
To pique the interest of adolescents, apply the positive aspects of adolescent psychology. Most hands-on drills will work to create a challenging atmosphere to keep Explorers coming back to acquire more skills. A hands-on drill that is really tedious is truck checks. They are a necessary evil but at the same time foundational. Flip the script and keep them on edge by emphasizing future drills using the tools they are enamored with. If they love the halligan, set up forcible entry. If their eyes light up handling a nozzle, then set up a cone course.
Have the Explorers choose some of the drills, taking safety into account. An instructor needs to be careful of the negative aspect of each of Erickson’s stages, limiting a classroom to mundane, lecture-style drills unless they are brief and set up the hands-on portion. Kids get enough of that in their secondary school (photo 1).
Donning and Doffing
Each Explorer drill should begin with a donning exercise. As this drill is typically timed, it develops industry very well and the improvement is tangible. Instructors can also increase the challenge by donning the turnout gear and then the self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA) after they get in the apparatus. Many donning drills are run literally in a straight line, so mix it up and have Explorers run from the door to their lockers. Try to simulate real life as much as possible by using multiple instructors to run throughout. This way, Explorers must dodge other firefighters, just like a real call (photo 2).
Radio Use
Have Explorers divide up with one firefighter in an apparatus, practicing talking on the radio by providing an arrival report from an on-screen picture, while the others are viewing the same scenario in another room critiquing the report. Although using a radio can be a challenge as far as not being conversational, it is an easy skill to learn. From a developmental standpoint, a drill on radio use satisfies at least three of Erickson’s stages, providing autonomy, initiative, and industry. From a practical standpoint, many nonofficers who very rarely get to talk on the radio often have difficulty with this task.
Using a Maze
Instructors can create challenges for Explorers to find their way out. Set up a maze to find an escape route or “follow the hose.” This drill will be of particular interest because of the challenges and teamwork involved. It also builds autonomy, as it can be done by the instructor in the “I do, we do, you do” model. This also applies if Explorers go through several times with an increasing difficulty level-going through with no SCBA, then on air using SCBA, and then finally on air using SCBA with a blacked-out mask (photo 3).
Tabletop Scenarios and Video Simulation
Many training facilities have a miniature town set up, not unlike a model train board, that can be used to practice the strategies to mitigate a fire or other scenarios. Of particular interest to younger audiences are video games that simulate fireground circumstances. Many of these games can be customized for evolving conditions; ask Explorers to react and change their strategies. Only in the fire service would a young adult play a simulated fire- ground game, helping to form an identity as a firefighter.
You’ll need to come up with modifications for adolescent learning. This will keep their interest and increase their desire to continue in the fire service. Realistically, modified adult learning is not middle or even high school. Fire instructors are going to be focused on teaching the most efficient and effective way to complete a task that could subsequently save a firefighter’s life.
As an instructor, you can only modify so much for young adult firefighters, who are going to have to step up and mature very quickly. For any modifications to be effective, you must know adolescent psychology strategies. This approach will help you effectively maximize recruitment and retention in young adults.
REFERENCES
Maslow, Abraham. “A Theory of Human Motivation.” American Psychological Association, 1943, bit.ly/4e7OPyw.
Orenstein, Gabriel, and Lindsay Lewis. Erikson’s Stages of Psychosocial Development. StatPearls Publishing, 2022, bit.ly/3Um4eEm.
JOSEPH CEA is in his seventh year as a volunteer firefighter for the Albany County, New York, District. He was a former New York State fire skills instructor and is now a secondary science teacher and a station keeper in Albany County, New York.
