Boy's Traffic and Risk-Taking
(update: 10 February 2005)
BOYS IN TRAFFIC: LEARNING AND RISK-TAKING;
SPECIFIC DEVELOPMENTAL TASKS AND
EDUCATION
Lauk Woltring /12-2-05
WJ5 135 Traffic 4b.doc
Paper for the 4th Biennial Conference
‘Working with Boys, Building Fine Men’
From Practice to Practice Melbourne,
Australia 3-5 April '05.
This text is intentionally not protected by
copyright. If copying, please mention the
source and site
www.laukwoltring.nl
Motto:
If youngsters would really learn from every
incident or (near-) accident in traffic,
traffic would be very safe by now! So the
key question is: what prevents them from
learning?
Introduction
Traffic is often dominated by engineers,
police, law-people and technicians, with
sometimes traditional ideas about top-down
instruction, hard line confrontation and
systems based on rewards and punishment. The
decreasing impact of sheer technical and
managerial measures to make traffic more
safe, makes way for more behavioural
approaches. In this text you’ll find an
introduction to some new practices in the
Netherlands. Some traffic instructors do
already a very fine job, but in this domain
one has seldom dreamt about something as
'working with boys' and introduction of
knowledge from neurobiology and new
learning strategies.
Much knowledge about working with boys is
more or less problem-bound and has been
developed in school-settings, health
promotion, the juvenal criminal system and
or youth social work. Traffic is a good
example of a completely different field in
which boys do learn very much with a high
intensity and motivation. Recently developed
know-how about constructive work with boys
can be implemented here easily. In the Dutch
system driving instructors do have 30-50
hours 1:1 contact with young men of 18-19
years old. Traffic offers an almost ideal
setting for tailor-made learning
experiences, direct feedback, contact,
alternately quiet and high-pressure
situations. There are opportunities for
direct action and reflection…. all leading
to basic automatized actions and so making
room for more complicated reflective
actions.
New learning strategies are based on a mix
of self reflection and internal goal setting
on the one hand, and rich experiences,
instruction, emotional coaching, cognitive
guidance and limit setting on the other
hand.
Campaigning in traffic safety was usually
derived from the advertisement industry.
This industry makes it their trade to switch
off the more calm and reflective thinking.
In order to sell they play on the primary
emotions and link them to a product. We
cannot 'sell' safety in this way, on the
contrary. Traffic has a strong impact on
primary emotions and reactions which we have
to overcome. Man has made roads, cars and
other things to cope with he just needs his
more complex mental facilities. We try to
invite and enable youngsters to use these
and develop them further. Keywords:
Discovering traffic: What does it with you?
Which abilities does it demand? Which do you
already have mastered? What can you learn
from your experiences in traffic? Who may
correct you? How? So there are plenty of
possibilities for new approaches.
In my contribution to the Melbourne
conference I like to illustrate some of
them. Here in Holland there is a fast
growing interest in this field and it turned
out to be very stimulating for everyone thus
far concerned.
In traffic boys are generally seen as a
major risk-group. Youngsters make much more
accidents than adults, and young men do form
and meet a far higher risk than young women.
The first four years after the entrance in
car traffic the accident risk is rapidly
growing, reaching the top after 1 or 2 years
and then it descents slowly. Some young men
develop long staying patterns of risky
driving behaviours. A closer look reveals
that the kind of incidents that young men
make in traffic is very different from
girls. Whereas girls tend to take (sometimes
too) many factors in account, show
incertaintainty trying to decide what to do,
or show some care freeness, boys have a
tendency to reduce their scope to immediate
acting. Boys show stress-related acting out
and risk behaviour and a disproportional
high assessment of their own competences.
They compensate in traffic for lack of
possibilities or too high demands elsewhere.
There are also elements of bluff and bravado
linked with low self esteem while they're
lacking some emotional and empathic skills.
Another perspective is to see their
behaviour in cars also as learning
behaviour: seeking limits and testing their
abilities. It is a field in which they (can)
learn much more than just handle a car.
Traffic is much more than going effectively
from A to B.
One may conclude that young men face
specific developmental tasks once they’re
confronted with the demands that traffic
places upon them. They have to relate to
themselves, they have to learn how to direct
their own energy and to relate to others in
what is also social traffic. The
relation between stress and learning is
crucial. Stress in a person, in a group, in
the instructor-pupil relation or stress
related to examinations. Under stress the
primary reactions dominate, learning during
the traffic instruction period may under
stress conditions easily transform into
obeying (externally oriented) and therefore
the effects are temporary: “Wait till I
have my license, than you’ll see me doing
what I want”. In a less stressful
situation, there is more room for
reflection, the learning is more open and
creative, intrinsic, more experience based,
coming from the inside and can more easily
lead to autonomy and more responsibility.
Traffic education and instruction in the car
or at school offers good opportunities to
relate to young men on an age where many of
them do not have much constructive
low-stress communications with adult men and
women. Driving instructors have - depending
on the country and its specific regulations
– 20 till 50 hours 1:1 contact and they can
offer ‘tailor’-made learning opportunities.
In the car there is a lot of talk about
other things than just traffic. These easy
communications are very important and can be
used to help pupils develop themselves,
prepare for their tasks in traffic and
prevent them from getting involved in risky
situations and interactions.
In several European countries there are new
regulations or there are experiments on 2nd
phase driving licensing (one year or a half
year after the basic driving license a new
course with testing, leading to an update).
In the Dutch pilotproject - called Young
drivers experience – we have developed
some material and courses to train driving
instructors in adjusting their professional
competences to the learning competences of
individual boys and girls, taking in account
their specific developmental needs, their
already developed qualities and the peculiar
way in which boys and girls learn in
traffic, all under the heading: Learning
in and from traffic experiences.
The here described programme is
developed for the second phase
driving pilot programme in Holland and has
in the meantime been tested and assessed[1].
In my contribution to this programme I have
transferred knowledge from the realms of
neurobiology, socialisation, education,
youth social work and ‘boys work’ into the
field of traffic education. More backgrounds
on my bilingual website (www.laukwoltring.nl).
The original text[2]
has been spread among the members of the
CIECA/NovEv working group. The working
elements in the Dutch project are:
Learning by doing
Self assessment, peer assessment and
instructor assessment
Interaction via website
simulated experiences (video)
Group discussions
The principles of this text now are the key
of a larger pilot in the Netherlands[3]
for the development of new ways of
traffic-instruction and traffic-education,
also in the first phase. Originally
that pilot was especially developed to meet
the problems of road-raging, aggression and
the high numbers of male youngsters that die
or get severely wounded in traffic. In the
meanwhile this pilot is broadened and now
designed for all driving instruction in the
new ‘step-by-step’ initial traffic training
scheme.
Back to top
1.
Structure of the pilotproject Young
Drivers Experience[4]
Youngsters have been selected with a half or
full year driving experience. Basic first
question was: “What did you learn the
past (half) year?”. In the here
displayed view the driving license is
more of a learning permit. You can’t
let youngsters enter car traffic without
some instruction and training. The initial
training is meant for basic skills; the
learning has to be completed in traffic and
later assessed in a 2nd phase (it
takes some 30-40.000 miles experience to
automatize some skills, freeing attention
and energy for really complex incident
avoiding manoeuvres). After the first phase
they did not prove to be good drivers, but
in this view they have shown to be able to
learn and that they have mastered basic
skills. This process needs some extra
assessment.
a. It starts with a questionnaire on a
website (restricted accessibility) including
moving images from traffic asking for a
reaction. Participants (boys and girls) make
a self assessment in such situations.
b. A profile is made of each
participant based on this questionnaire.
c. During a period of three weeks they
fill in a weekly self report on this
website.
d. Followed with one day with many
activities. First (1) a mutually assessed
tour in a car by two youngsters accompanied
by a driving instructor. After the drive
they compare their self-assessment, mutual
assessment and the assessment by the driving
instructor, then the envelop containing
their profile stemming from the
questionnaire (step b) is opened, followed
by a short discussion in the car.
e. Directly after this tour (2) there
is a series of track experiences aiming at
discovering their own reactions in extreme
situations (slippery road, full-stop if an
imitation-child is crossing, full stop of a
car ahead, etc.). These track experiences
are on a test station, not for
improvement of their competences (with less
than 30.000 miles road-experience dangerous
for leading to overestimation of themselves)
but for ‘learning their own limits’ and
raising their risk awareness.
f. After these track experiences (3)
there is a group discussion with a video
specially developed for this project.
g. Then there is another series of 3
weekly self reports via the website.
h. Closing with a last assessment
drive with a driving instructor.
Back to top
2. Essence of the Dutch Project:
learning in/from traffic experiences
This project is about young drivers: so
we’re talking about their behaviour, their
car, also their incident or accident. It’s
their life, their future and their
capability to make something of their life
(and that’s what matters!). So: they
should learn, it is their responsibility. We
can only make arrangements to learn from it,
see the steps above.
Important notes about learning (stimuli,
emotions, feeling, social emotions, higher
mental processes) can be derived from
neurobiology[5].
Here we can find important grips for
understanding behaviour in traffic and how
to learn from it. We distinguish:
-
Simple/fast acting: A
stimulus (internal and/or external) leads to
a primary emotion (joy or sorrow) and in
danger/stress it is soon followed by action,
hardly reflected.
-
Complex acting: A stimulus
(internal and/or external) leads to a
primary emotion (joy or sorrow), followed by
more complex emotions, feeling them,
comparing them with memory, leading to
thinking, reflection and decision making,
followed by (more or less aware) acting upon
these. In the latter case we make more use
of our higher intellectual functions in the
neocortex, especially the frontal lobes.
Under stress people tend to relapse into the
simple case (not using higher functions,
because these need more time). Mankind has
survived by a highly developed sensitivity
for danger, so our stress-sensors work very
fast. Only under calm and safe conditions
‘we switch on’ the frontal neocortex
(conscious memory, thought, ethics,
planning, analysing, more complex decision
making).
Boys even tend to switch off the higher
brain functions sooner than girls do (see
a.o. Gurian 2001) and are more inclined to
act swift in the stress-mode. Of course we
do better not reduce boys and girls to their
sexes, there is so much more what makes
someone the one he or she is. Nevertheless
it’s practical to acknowledge some average
male-female differences in
(learning-)behaviour with of course big
overlaps. On average we see for example big
differences in handling impulses by young
women and young men, originating in:
-
The adrenaline-testosterone
dynamics: girls low in testosterone, more
internalisation and awareness of fear; young
men, high in testosterone: more
externalisation and aggression and
overruling fear by action (see also
conference paper by Martine Delfos).
-
Girls’ brain functions are less
lateralised than boys’. The left-right
hemisphere connections in the brain grow in
girls early, in young men later, especially
when stimulated by experiences. Especially
the link between felt emotions, rhythm,
intuition, creativity and movement on
the one hand (right hemisphere) and
language and analysis (right) is for
boys very important. These links grow later
depending on experiences and conditions, and
thís leads us also to the importance of
socialisation, examples and verbal mutual
communication.
-
Different roles of the primary,
secondary, small brain and neo-cortex under
stress (boys tend more to switch off higher
mental processes under stress).
-
Vision (girls look more
wide-angle, boys more focussed).
-
Movement, physical problem solving
(boys quick, girls more hesitant), boys
learn more by doing and phrasing/thinking
afterwards, girls the other way around.
-
Speech (boys’ brain: ‘only left’;
girls both sides)
There are also big male/female differences
in socialisation: here we look at parent-boy
and parent-girl interactions, changing
perspectives, distribution of paid and
unpaid work; lacking or absent fathers, the
impact of media and advertisement, and so on
(for more info: see my website). Specific:
boys and girls from a not-western background
(for instance from Islamic, stable
hierarchical or patriarchal cultures) do
have less experience with negotiating
opinions, negotiating their values and
seeking truth by discussion. Self-esteem and
not loosing face is here extra important to
avoid stress.
Handling a car in traffic may be a different
challenge for boys and girls. Many parents
and other adults may look at boys in traffic
as a threat (and to girls as threatened) and
in fact they are often right, but on the
same hand good traffic instruction and
education offer great opportunities to learn
boys how to handle their own energy and
motives in communication with others.
Conscious learning means giving words to
rich experiences, linking emotions and
feelings. Naming experiences and
communicating them with others, means
stopping the fast revolving kaleidoscope ‘in
their heads’ of impressions, memories,
messages and felt emotions. Reflection and
consciousness is to a great extent lingual.
Words and language ask for structure and
decisions (present or past; active or
passive; subject or object, singular or
plural, and so on). So giving words to an
experience and the accompanying emotion
stabilises an experience, change it and
makes a wider range of emotions and mental
maps accessible, including memories and
linked emotions and feelings.
This type of learning asks for stress
reduction. If boys feel endangered (by
others, by traffic or by the expectations of
their peers and the adult world) we need to
create stimulating but safe conditions and
also reduce stress in the communication
itself. Eventually self-esteem is a major
emotion, so our approach is: “After a
half or one year you really know better how
to do it, let’s go on where you are now”.
Adolescents/young adults are making
their own life and decisions, so they tend
to have an ambivalent relation to adults:
eager to learn from them, and at the same
time contesting their authority. In practice
there may be a thin line between
authoritarian and authoritative. A good
adult instructor or educator tries to set
the limits and challenges in such a way that
it gives enough safety and stimuli to learn.
In the following 3 paragraphs some elements
are elaborated in which the construction of
the video, the interaction and communication
were central: the video ‘Young drivers
experience’; designed for 19-year old
novice drivers. Instructions for feedback in
the car and leading group discussions and
some keys on learning in the car and in the
group discussions about the video.
Back to top
3.
Design of video ‘young drivers
experience’.
This video was specially designed for this
project. It gives 3 short sequences of quite
normal road experiences of a group of 3
young men in the car and another 4
sequences with a girl behind the wheel.
During their trip they go through low key
incidents, ‘near-accidents’.
This is not just another spectacular
video-clip: no blood, no sirens, no blue
flashlights, no big drama. Those elements
just heighten the stress and give sheer
‘adrenaline-entertainment’ - the good guys
versus the bad guys - and are bad parameters
for reflection and learning. The
advertisement industry makes it their trade
to switch off the thinking and play on the
primary emotions and link them to a product.
We cannot ‘sell’ safety in this way, quite
the contrary. Traffic has a strong impact on
primary emotions and reactions. Man has made
roads, cars and other fantastic, but
sometimes dangerous things. To cope with
these, he needs his more complex mental
facilities. We try to enable youngsters to
use these and develop them further.
This video meets the requirements of
learning by scenario’s, context bound
dilemmas in which youngsters have to make
their own decisions which can be talked
about in an also socially safe environment.
It enables youngsters to understand their
own physical reactions, emotions and
feelings and to develop thoughts about them.
While asking for, and discussing these
thoughts, we invite and enable them to
‘steer’ their own behaviour in a more
constructive way[6].
Using more spectacular situations it would
be ‘rather simple’ to offer youngsters a
good day and fine group discussion, but it’s
harder to make it ‘stick’. We focus on the
transfer of our results outside the project.
Assessment of the situation, others and
‘self’, and acting accordingly is the
ultimate goal, also outside the project.
Back to top
4. Instructions for feedback in the
car and in the group:
This is all about positive learning without
neglecting firm boundaries or limits and
confrontations where necessary, but always
aiming at learning (internal control)
instead of discipline and obedience
(external control)[7].
Bottom-line: Learning builds on already
developed qualities: “I do accept
correction or hints from someone who also
sees what I do perform well”. So:
4.1. In the car:
Allways first
point out: “What
are you doing well?” and after a
situation that asks for some instructor’s
intervention (“No problem with that,
you’re still learning and it is ok to make
mistakes, but let’s see what happened”):
“What did you see, what did you do,
what’s your own impression, why did I have
to intervene?”.
We learn most from our errors, but in
learning from them we rest on our qualities,
our already mastered skills. The key is to
find the qualities, even in a mistake (some
details may have been right) and make it up
together, that gives confidence and trust.
Many instructors are focussed on errors,
establish their authority in pointing them,
and find it hard to see the qualities of
pupils or novice drivers. This leads to
bravado or to doubts, low self esteem and
stress: maybe good for disciplining, but bad
for learning.
Second:
“What needs
some improvement?”
Give them first an opportunity to find an
answer themselves. Than: “What does the
other novice driver see?” (again:
“What’s good and what can be done better”)
“Does he have some advice?”
and at
last: the observation from the instructor
(the message here to driving instructors is:
“Do not deny them your experience,
knowledge or wisdom, but give it as an
extra, a surplus on what they already found
out themselves and what you have confirmed.
It’s only than that your remarks may be
welcomed”). In the process they learn to
judge each other and speak about it as well.
First comes questioning, later speaking.
-
How much control do you have: Over
yourself? Over the car?What’s good? What
needs improvement?
-
How do you react in traffic
situations? What’s good? What needs
improvement?
-
What is your risk-perception? What
do you see? What didn’t you see?
-
Where is your breath? Low in the
belly (calm) or high in the chest (aroused)?
-
Which muscles are relaxed? Which
are tense?
-
What effects do the road situations
have on you? Can you master these effects?
-
What is the effect of your driving
on others in traffic? Flow or stress?
-
Would you like to be a passenger in
the car of your co-driver? Why yes? Why
hesitant?
-
And more alike.......
Here it is important that the youngsters,
especially the boys, give words to
their impressions and thoughts. Phrasing
leads to structuring and reflection in a
social context! Evaluation of this type of
instruction brings out that most boys learn
to enjoy this - if it’s played ‘fair’ and
not submitting and humiliating - and tend to
spread this in their social environment as
well.
Back to top
4.2. In the group:
The best basic attitude of the instructor
who is leading the group discussion in our
pilot (he is also there at the test track
experience) is ‘questioning instead of
instructing’. Only at last they give
giving their assessment, their observation,
their opinion and their knowledge. Boys do
know much more about their own and each
other’s behaviour and its consequences than
we think, but it is not yet put in words (or
just defensive), they can learn to trust
their own insights and develop them. Most of
it is already there in their bodies and
heads, but they do not yet use it always,
they do not feel socially safe enough or
they do not know yet how to act on
this knowledge without losing their face or
loose their image (also for themselves…).
A distinction is made here between
knowledge stemming from their own ‘inside’
experience (or simulated nearby experience
with vivid scenario’s and videos) and
knowledge coming from outside sources
in fragmented rules, instructions, and so
on. Whereas the first is more connected to
their own emotions and motives, more linked
with their body and bodily reactions, the
latter is more cognitive, more associated
with language, their own incompetence, with
compliance and obedience to systems they do
not always comprehend.
To their own experiences and self management
we add instructions where needed (in
stead of starting with instructions and
asking for discipline and obedience).
Without neglecting the importance of
compliance with rules in traffic, we again
focus first on self-management and we
add traffic rules, being a socially
agreed management of flow and safety in
traffic as a necessary means in managing
social interaction in the specific
conditions of road traffic. Even a youth
gang has its own rules; boys do know that
they need rules to structure their relations
and be safe for each other, but at the same
time they want to test the rules of the
adult world. Basically this is a
constructive process, needing to be steered
by interested and dedicated grown-ups, who
can discuss and transfer the value of
traffic-rules. Without reliable agreements
traffic would be a mess and slaughterhouse;
even every risk prone boy will understand
this.
1. Short opening (Who is who? Give them
opportunity to speak out and let them hear
their own voices in this new space; this
lowers the threshold for later participation
and verbal contributions)
2. Why this group-discussion? Short!
3. Some simple rules (“Together we
know everything; everybody can contribute
something; there is no such thing as a
stupid question; the only stupid question is
the unphrased question”, etc.)
4. “What was your most important
impression this morning on the track
outside? What did you see? What caught your
attention? What did you learn out there?”
Short, in catchwords on the whiteboard. Only
a wide spread of remarks; try to avoid in
this stadium lengthy discussions. Here we
just sample the richness of all their
reactions.
5. Direct after this show the 6 or 7
scenes one by one. Basic questions are every
time in this order:Again first: “What’s
happening here, what did the driver well?”
Second: “What needs some improvement?” (What
is your own experience in these situations?
What would you do?)
Slowly we divert from the video to their own
experiences without blaming if they make
themselves too vulnerable, even by bluffing.
It’s easy to burst their storytelling. It’s
better to neglect bravado, have some laughs
and slowly come to the heart of the matter.
If it comes too close (defence-mechanisms
are starting) one can always go back to the
video that is more neutral.
The whiteboard (‘living minutes’: you can
wipe away old words and write down new)
diverts from confrontation whenever that is
blocking the learning. The whiteboard gives
some focus and it means that what you say is
useful and at the same time it diverts from
the person who did the contribution to the
groupdiscussion, so there is less chance for
competition, mutual degrading, etc. Looking
at the whiteboard activates vision, not only
listening, it enables thinking and
contribution. We do not only train them in
awareness of their own traffic experience,
but also to communicate about them; we give
living examples how to support and correct
each other without humiliation. So we lower
the stress and make reflective and social
learning possible.
One of the major elements in giving feedback
in the car and communication in the group is
to de-activate defence mechanisms (like
withdrawal, bluff, bravado) and to activate
learning. Again: it is not our
message that’s most important, it’s
their
learning!
6. Another important question to
youngsters is: “From who do you accept
hints and corrections? How should they do
it? How do you like to be addressed”.
(It turned out that many boys did like these
questions particularly).
7. At the end we put the youngsters in
the chair of advisors: “If we have
another group like yours next week: which
elements should we maintain, and what should
we alter…”.
Here is double profit: (1) it will give us
extra data for our own work, and (2) it
reinforces their experience, because we take
them as serious ones, so they are invited to
take their own experiences serious as well.
And they do!
Disorderly conduct must be stopped of
course, in the car as well in the group: be
short and clear, explain why, don’t discuss,
one warning, if necessary expulsion. It’s
safer for all others. It happened to us
rarely; the participants in our course have
volunteered. These phrases are also
necessary in the instruction of the
traffic-instructors to make them feel
safe in what they are doing; of
course there are limits to understanding and
‘enabling’. An instructor who does not feel
safe and does not act upon that feeling is a
bad example for the young men; they have a
sharp radar for that!
The aimed process with the young drivers in
discussing needed improvement is: going from
external attribution - “It was the
weather, that stupid other driver, the road,
or the car” - to internal attribution -
“How did I cope with these situations?”
- without blaming (blaming invokes
defence-mechanisms that stop learning) but
pointing to their responsibilities
as far as they are able to make them
come true. This is very important; our
attitude should not imbalance their not yet
fully balanced self-assessment. This is not
soft on risky behaviour but wise in
learning.
Back to top
5 Some
catchwords on learning in the car and in
group discussions on the video ‘young
drivers experience’.
Traffic skills consist of:
-
Technical skills: knowing how to
handle the car in different situations.
-
Ego-skills: knowing which effect
the car and the traffic has on
self-management; directing your own energy;
learning from your body, including your
emotions; being master ‘in’ instead of
‘over’ yourself, etc. Plus the other way
around: knowing how all kinds of emotions do
influence your driving.
-
Social Skills (traffic is social
traffic under special conditions): empathy,
communication, giving way, clear signs,
steady in your track, reliability, etc.
5.1. Traffic is much more than efficient
movement from A to B
Traffic is also an emotional arena:
self-expression, trial, competition,
compensation and so on. It’s our task to
help youngsters in learning from their
traffic experience playing on their drives,
understanding their emotions and feelings,
enabling their higher mental facilities and
helping them to neutralise blocking
influences.
Most people learn from trial and error.
Boys even more so than girls. And 90% of our
learning is not on purpose, but by
experience, trial and error, examples,
imitation or identification. Despite all
kinds of campaigns there are still many road
accidents with youngsters. Everybody has
been in an accident or near-accident, has
lost friends and relatives or found them
back in a hospital. We may conclude that
there is something blocking the learning
processes in traffic. So we ask ourselves:
Back to top
5.2. What is blocking their learning?
-
Stress, above all caused by fear,
overload and aggression (in traffic, or in
the communication with the instructor or
examiner)
-
Propensity to high stimuli.
-
Isolation and anonymity in their
steel cages, invisibility, switching off
social interaction by tinted windows or
helmets on mopeds, motorcycles. The illusion
of being mighty in their own car.
-
Under- and overestimation of their
own capabilities.
-
Acted self-manifestation (as-if)
instead of real self-manifestation.
-
Compensation for low or not
fitting challenges elsewhere.
-
Bad examples of adult role models.
-
Constant negative feedback
emphasizing inabilities, degradation and
humiliation.
-
Extreme competition (e.g. to
overcome low self-respect) leads away from
self-reflection.
-
Advertisement industry (fast
cars!) stimulates primary emotions, tries to
stop deliberate thinking and tries to
compensate for not realised wishes by
selling products.
5.2. What is stimulating their learning?
-
Curiosity, eagerness to learn,
widening horizons.
-
Developing skills, being able to
show skills and being confirmed in these.
-
‘Being there’, rest, harmony,
calmness.
-
A sense of ‘self’, also without
action.
-
Sound thinking, common sense.
-
Wanting to survive (short and long
term).
-
Self-esteem.
-
Being appreciated by others for
what you are, instead of what you act.
-
Being part of a positive social
network, positive relations to adults and
peers.
-
Constructive values.
-
Wanting to contribute, being asked
to contribute.
5.3. Some developmental tasks in traffic,
especially for young men
-
Feeling part of it all (instead of
"Me against the rest of the world"
with the peergroup on one's back)
-
Real self esteem
-
Proportionate reactions
-
Broad view instead of 'blind
focus'
-
Breath control (low deep breath)
under stress conditions
-
Development of empathy
-
Social behaviour instead of merely
self expression
-
Able to be like water (part of the
flow, flexible response to other traffic
participants)
-
Able to be like rock (knowing who
you are and what you want; standing up to
group pressure towards risky behaviour,
bluff and bravado)
Back to top
6
What you see is what you get .
Traffic instructors are
traffic-coaches.
The principles mentioned above and tested in
the pilot can also be used in first phase
driving instruction. Traffic instruction
offers nearly ideal situations to organise
positive learning: 20-40 hours with a
youngster in the car under sometimes calm
and sometimes difficult traffic conditions.
Most educationalists can only dream of so
much one-to-one contact. Many fathers don’t
have so much significant communication with
their sons or daughters at that age. And
instead of embarrassing questions, driving
instructors have something to offer what
boys really want: a driving license, space,
mobility, real life skills, attention,
direct feedback. There is a hidden golden
vein out there.
So following the course of this project we
can actually revalue driving instructors in
their job and give them - when needed, some
do already an excellent job - training in
feedback-principles and skills (not top-down
teaching, but bottom-up learning). In
society their profession has a low standing,
while in reality these men and women are for
many youngsters the only adults who have so
much contact over a longer period. They can
choose the situation that fits best with the
already learned skills, can choose moments
of silence and interaction. What is learned
can be applied directly, effective feedback
is possible, many situations can be
repeated. Pupils are allowed to make
mistakes, instructors can stop the car and
look back: “What happened? Why did I have
to intervene?”
In Holland we have a saying: “The eye of
the master makes the horse fat”, or in
nowadays ICT-speak: What you see is what
you get. .. If you see in a pupil a
dangerous boy and treat him alike, he may
become a living risk on the road. If you see
a learning boy, eager to master new skills,
you may warn him for mistakes, but you’ll
reinforce his tendency to learn, and he will
listen if you do it right… It’s the
interaction that matter’s. Some instructors
may operate on a commanding instruction
level, but others are in fact real
traffic-educationalists or can become so. In
this training of instructors we build their
profession on the zone of nearest
development (Vygotsky):
Back to top
Steering energy
Young people want to give meaning to their
lives and look for boundaries. They like to
test adults’ integrity but still have
difficulty in recognising authority.
Competition and rivalry may boost outside
orientation and pushes internal reflection
aside. What really matters is finding your
own meaningful way through life in
cooperation with others. Correction is
sometimes needed, but we can also support
young men in their search for new paths.
This means, first of all, being able to make
contact, to listen and show appreciation,
and also establishing boundaries, explaining
them clearly and maintaining them,
preferably with humour and a way out without
losing face. No humiliation; nobody needs to
be shown up. Genuine interest really works.
Learning is often a matter of falling down
and getting up on your feet again. Limiting
someone in what he is already able to do or
judge, equals humiliating and/or creates
laziness. Linking up with the qualities and
abilities of a boy on the other hand
confirms his self-esteem and makes him grow.
Setting him a task that is bound to go wrong
or will endanger himself or others leads to
failure and flop. That is also humiliating
or may lead to fear. It is more fit to limit
him in those areas where he crosses his own
boundaries and those of others by far and to
support him in those things that are only
just out of his reach unless he gets some
help. That gives self-confidence and
trust in the person who helps him grow in
his abilities. Events that have not been
coped with and negative experiences ask for
help and support in finding words to name
them or ‘process’ them some other way.
Otherwise, the learning process stops and a
knot develops or some hidden grudge or grief
or even anger.
These principles can be applied in traffic
education along the lines displayed in this
pilot programme and are now gradually being
implemented in new forms of driving
instruction in the Netherlands. Anyway: the
same principles as in working with
youngsters apply to anyone who is
participating in the project (instructors,
managers, scientists, ‘experts’, including
me…)
More info (see other pages on this site,
backgrounds):
www.laukwoltring.nl Questions?
lauk.woltring@planet.nl All remarks are
very much welcomed.
Lauk Woltring
Senior lecturer at Amsterdam University for
Professional Education (Youth Social Work).
In 1985 initiator of ‘Working with Boys’ in
the Netherlands. Published several books on
boys work. Since 1994 also active in the
field of Traffic Education. Since 2000 he
runs a private agency ‘Working with
Boys’ . Innovation, Advice and Training
and co-founded the platform ‘Boys in
Balance’: experts dedicated to the
specific qualities and problems of
adolescent boys. Consultant for the Rock
and Water Institute in the Netherlands.
[1]
CIECA Final Report on the evaluation of
novice driver training schemes in 6 EU
member states. 6-10-2004
[2]
Amsterdam 15-1-2004 CIECA, NovEv-meeting A
European Working Group on the novice drivers
experiments in 7 European countries (see
http://www.cieca-drivinglicence.org/html/eng/engstart.htm
click on NovEv)
[3]
Woltring.L. Traffic education for youth
at risk as part of road instruction in steps,
- commissioned by CBR The national Dutch
Authority on driving licenses and a
public/private Expertise centre for traffic
safety
[4]
Developed by ROVG Regional Board for Road
Safety in Gelderland (a Dutch Province) and
SWOV = Dutch Institute for Road Safety
Research
[5]
See e.g. the work of the neurobiologist and
philosopher Antonio Damasio Looking for
Spinoza. Joy, Sorrow and the Feeling Brain
(Heinemann London 2003), more specific
derivations for boys and girls: Woltring
(only in Dutch, see website), in English
available: Michael Gurian, Boys and Girls
learn differently San Francisco 2001
[6]
The video-part of the Dutch Novice Driver
Pilotproject, interaction strategies and the
accompanying group discussion are developed
along some lines that are very similar to
those in the Rock and Water project (feeling
and understanding your own movements,
getting grip on your own movements and
motives, also developing self-confidence,
self-control, self-respect and aiming for
safety, integrity and solidarity. See
www.rotsenwater.nl (a bilingual site,
click for English on The Gadaku Institute.
[7]
In this view heated, psychopathic and/or
always trespassing drivers, unable to
develop some sane self-control, have to be
met by police measures and are only under
very special circumstances accessible for
educational measures. Real madmen just have
to be excluded from road traffic. Letting
them go is a bad message to the risk group
around these drivers.
Back to top
