4 Tips To Becoming A Law Enforcement Instructor
Everyone has their own motivation for becoming a law enforcement instructor. For me, I love nothing more than hearing from students about how they have used their new found knowledge to put bad guys in jail or they used the information to keep themselves and their partners safe. One thing you won't become, though, is rich. If you are in it for the money, you should turn around now. Very few law enforcement instructors go on to make decent money teaching. To get there, you do a lot of teaching for free. What it can do, though, is give you personal satisfaction and it can boost your career.
I've been lucky enough to travel the world teaching people about drug investigations and tactics. Along the way, I've learned what it takes to get to the top of the heap of law enforcement instructors. Follow these steps and you will be on your way to educating the next generation of street cops.
Identify Your Skills and Experience
First, you'll need to take inventory of your skills and experience. I keep a log of every class I've ever taken, including college classes that are relevant to my law enforcement job. To become a good instructor, you need to be a better student. What skill are you good at? For me, I was good at drug enforcement. I went to every class I could to make myself a better DopeCop. A lot of times I had to send myself to those classes on my own dime. You can't get better if you are relying on your department to send you to classes.
But, going to school isn't enough. You'll need to be good at your job in real life. For me, I kept a log of every drug arrest I made, every search warrant I wrote and every major case I did. These logs of classes and cases gave a visual indicator to anyone that asked that I was good at what I was doing. Just like report writing, if you didn't write it down it didn't happen.
Develop Your Teaching Skills
You can develop your teaching skills in various ways. First, you should take an instructor level class for your specialty. You should also take basic instructor development courses to learn about adult learning theories. For me, I attended the Drug Recognition Expert Instructor Course as well as other instructor schools dealing with drug enforcement and investigations. But, I didn't stop there. I took many civilian and law enforcement instructor courses to learn more about teaching others. I still take them today to keep up on current learning theories.
Many of these schools I sent myself through. Again, you can't expect your agency to pay for all of this instruction. You can also talk to as many law enforcement instructors as possible. When you are at a school, many times the instructor had to travel there and may have some extra time on their hands after class. Ask them how they got started and what tips they have for someone just starting out teaching.
Get Experience as an Instructor
Next, you'll want to get experience teaching. I started out by teaching Advanced Officer training at my agency. I got back from the Drug Recognition Expert school and I asked if I could teach a block at departmental training. It was a hit. My agency started asking me to teach more classes beyond drug enforcement topics. When you come back from any training, ask your agency if you can share that knowledge with your co-workers at in house training or in roll call training.
You can also hit up your local police academy. They often need volunteers to act as role players and graders. You'll get your face seen and it will open doors for you. I did that and got a regular teaching gig at my regional training center. Teaching young recruits is rewarding and helps you develop your instructor skills.
I also taught many classes for free for law enforcement associations. I can't tell you how many times I taught a course for a challenge coin or a free lunch. I taught for free for my state's narcotics officers association and they sent me everywhere in the state to teach classes. Soon, I was getting offers from other associations to come and teach. Word will spread and, if your good, you will get multiple offers to teach.
Create a Social Media Presence and a Website
When you start teaching, create a website outlining what you are teaching, what your teaching schedule is and create a blog. In that blog, you want to write about whatever you think is important for your students and followers. For me, I simply ask people what they want to know more about. In this example, I get numerous requests from students about how to further their own teaching careers. This is how this article came about. Write about what people need to know and answer those questions.
Then you want to spread the word. You'll need a good social media network to make that happen. It can seem daunting to get followers on a social media channel. I remember when I created my first social media page and was happy when I hit 545 followers. Then one day I wrote something that resonated with a lot of people. Now I have social media following of 350,000 people. That's a lot of people that can hear my message when I send it out.
I remember when I was struggling to find teaching work. Twenty five years later, I'm booked solid for the next year and beyond. To get there, I took a lot of classes as as student, I worked very hard on the street developing my experience, and then I hit the books by going to instructor schools and teaching for free. That last part, teaching for free, lasted for a very long time. It wasn't until later in life that I was able to make a career of it. To make a career of it, I did a lot of writing and social media advocacy. But it all paid off and it can pay off for you too with a lot of hard work.