Hunters Ed field day

[AZkiller]

15 hours ago, IA Born said:

This is true.  Also, we get kids showing up to online field days months (now a year or two) after taking the online class and they are absolutely clueless as to the concepts, questions, and basic firearm safety.  And we're supposed to pass them.  I hate to say it this way, but there are kids out hunting with a full completion certificate and HE card that scare the absolute crap out of me.  I wouldn't feel safe around them at all.

If they forget the class before or after the field day then what the heck is the point?! Just to get the point or to teach safety in the field!? The entire issue is once again the Governments fault. Should never have shut down the field days.

[Hoss50]

1 hour ago, AZkiller said:

😂 yeah the teachers always know best. What happened before the government decided you needed a class to be able to hunt? Everyone just shot ppl or themselves?? Come on.. almost every Dodge driver in the field scares me more than a father instructing his son or daughter in the field. 

I am glad that Ram split off from Dodge and isn't Dodge Ram anymore. Now I don't have to be the guy haunting your dreams...😂

[IA Born]

On 12/7/2022 at 10:26 PM, Hoss50 said:

That's the other problem. They have not restarted the class to train the instructors after covid. Alot of the old ones are leaving and nobody new is being trained. 

There's quite a bit of speculation as to why the department hasn't started up new instructor training, but that's for a cup of coffee (my treat).  A big part of the exodus in the last year is the training requirements for cyber security and personal information access.  Many of the instructors didn't want to be burdened with the training requirements, even though every other volunteer for AGFD has to take them, so they opted out of being an instructor.  Now we're down to three (maybe four) active instructor teams across the entire state.  We can't keep up with the demand.  Our team in Flagstaff went from 20 instructors available down to 11.  Burn out happens real quick and every team is pleading with AGFD to get the new instructor training up and running.  Ours is the only volunteer training not occurring for the department.

[IA Born]

On 12/8/2022 at 5:55 AM, AZkiller said:

😂 yeah the teachers always know best. What happened before the government decided you needed a class to be able to hunt? Everyone just shot ppl or themselves?? Come on.. almost every Dodge driver in the field scares me more than a father instructing his son or daughter in the field. 

I'm in no way claiming to be judge, jury, and executioner here or that I know best.  I've been instructing for 10 years and I have seen multiple kids show up to class and they point muzzles at people and have little awareness to what they are doing, even after hammering firearm safety into the class.  When we approach the parents to talk about what we're seeing, some (not all) of these parents are either not engaged, don't understand the problem, or just don't care.  We've had parents get mad at us for calling out their kids' poor firearm safety on the shooting line.  That is not the norm and I never claimed it to be the norm, but I've seen it enough to say that it definitely happens and those are the kids/families that scare me.

On 12/8/2022 at 5:59 AM, AZkiller said:

If they forget the class before or after the field day then what the heck is the point?! Just to get the point or to teach safety in the field!? The entire issue is once again the Governments fault. Should never have shut down the field days.

I agree and disagree with this. I wish the agency hadn't shut the program down for so long.  And now field days are hard to get into because of lack of instructor teams putting them on.  I feel for the kids who truly want to hunt and learn, but have to wait so long.  AGFD started requiring short "refresher quiz" to help with the material retention.  The quiz was required to attend a field day for online students and we saw a huge jump in both participation and knowledge.  At the same time, even before classes were shut down, we had the same issues.  It was also obvious (sometimes admitted) that the parents/grandparents/other guardian actually took the test for the kid just so they could get their kid out hunting.  I've had kids freely admit they didn't know there would be a 50-question final exam at the field day to pass the class, even though there is a HUGE red banner on the first page of the online class that says there will be a 50-question test at the field day to pass the class.  One teen admitted (sort of paraphrasing) "I just blew through it to get it done.  I had no idea there was a test when we showed up." after getting a 22/50 on the test.

Think what you want about AGFD's (or any other states') requirements to pass an HE class in order to hunt.  I won't deny you that.  I'm just a volunteer instructor who's seen the entire spectrum of issues in 10 years.  I'll still buy the coffee and we can talk more if you're in Flagstaff and interested.

[Crazymonkey]

It's sad to see that more parents don't take a more active role 😕. Safety is no joke !! As a dad with a daughter I had all my guns locked up before she could crawl.She was introduced to gun safety way before she ever held a gun .I still make her check any gun that I hand her even tho she see me check it before handing it to her. SAFETY AND HUNTING ETHICS are learned traits .Teach them well and we will all be better for it.