Yes, that’s me looking over the shoulder of one of my students. For the last ten years before I retired, I was a full-time teacher. I was manufacturer-certified to train our technicians on a variety of products from Ricoh, Canon, Kyocera-Mita, Konica-Minolta, and HP. I had also earned the industry standard designation of CompTIA Certified Technical Trainer. The courses I taught ranged from four hour supervised self-training on fax machines and printers, to a six week course on a high-volume color machine that sold (with peripherals) for a quarter of a million dollars.
While public school teachers like to refer to themselves as educators, those of us who taught technical courses in industry preferred to be known as trainers. I was often asked why, and the best explanation was one I heard at a Canon trainers’ conference at Disney World several years ago.
The speaker was discussing the difference between education and training, and he gave this example:
“Suppose your 13 year old daughter came home from school and told you she had signed up for an elective course called Sexual Education?
Depending on things like your politics or religion, you might have some concerns, but chances are you wouldn’t be too upset.”
He paused, took a sip of water, and then said,
“But what if she came home and told you ‘Dad, I just signed up for Sexual Training?”
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