another thought, in terms of effective cultural training delivery
The instructor makes a huge difference.
As it is currently practiced, doctrine prevents the Sgt. without a degree- but with years of experience training polic officers in Iraq or Afghanistan, from leading or designing the sort of training that is actually relevant to our military's needs. However, the PhD with no recent field experience in the region is qualified. In fact, I am aware of an instructor meeting that description in the system right now that has spent a career studying Ireland, has no military experience, and is teaching an Islam-specific knowledge course.
The USMC CAOCL says (and I agree): "Instead of generalist historians, religion specialists, and journalists, younger personnel who combined recent operational experience with academic study, site visits, and debriefing of returning units conducted the training. In this respect, cultural trainers have been working to shorten the lessonslearned feedback loop from deployment to
deployment…he or she must be a Soldier or Marine who has recently deployed operationally to the AO in a job requiring ongoing interaction with the indigenous population--the division combat operations center watch officer from OIF-I will not do. MOS is not important here; interaction with Iraqis on a regular basis is." (“Advances in Predeployment Culture Training: The U.S. Marine Corps Approach”, Barak Salmoni and Paula Holmes-Eber)
There is a lot of ignored common ground here. Why is that?
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Originally Posted by
William F. Owen
a.) What do we mean "culture?" - it's a woolly imprecise term of no actual use to soldiers, in the context it is being used.
b.)
The primary requirement is to teach soldiers how not to cause offence or make situations worse by being rude or disrespectful...
...IMO, ditch the "cultural competence/understanding" stuff and instead boil it down to:
- Language training (3 levels)
- RELEVANT Local beliefs, customs and courtesies.
Keep it simple and effective.
All points addressed in my original post, with no exceptions.
to nichols, a few last thoughts
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I don't fully agree with your statement but the outcome is the same. We really don't have a doctrine for culture & language...
not so sure we disagree...
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There are lot of junior Marines and NCOs leading and designing training that hits the target culture...The major issue is that there is no doctrine so the training being done on the small unit level stays at the small unit level.
I know, right? I read the materials for several of these classes while researching for something else. A lot of the materials are incredible. Too bad their makers and the contect just wanders away, and the wheel is regularly reinvented.
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When the culture specialist are hired to conduct training, the KSAs play into the hiring process. Ultimately, because there isn't a clear defined doctrine the instructor usually is hired on a subjective basis.
What I have heard (a *lot*) is that the opposite happens- the instructor is hired according the a strict interpretation of the rules. If they have to hire the person with the most time in the field, you get the guy 15 yr old PhD research experience because he has 5 years in the field, and not the guy with two recent tours, because he has less than 5 years. You get someone with a Masters in anthro, with work in behavioral modeling but no military experience, *not* the guy with an undergrad in criminology who worked in intelligence in Iraq.
The key to the most effective training is shortening the feedback loop that gets lessons learned from the field into the training system. While I take exception to the statement that there is not clear doctrine on the instructor hiring process, "As it is currently practiced", training (both program standards, program eval, and trainer standards), knowledge management (KM), and COIN doctrine do not support the most effective cultural training.
-COIN doctrine provides the directive that we should have it, and leaves it at that.
-KM relegates cultural lessons learned to the types of KM tools from which we could never reliably get information out
-Program eval standards allow contractors to evaluate test performance at the end of a course, then say, "We're awesome!" There is no follow up on how that culture or language training was applied (or not applied) in the field.
-Trainer standards block the most qualified, in terms of recent field experience, from being trainers unless they meet byzantine guidelines
-(and this is what we really agree on, nichols) The culture training program standards are being made up as we go along, often by the contractors that are designing the programs (talk about foxes, henhouses, etc.)
But be careful what you ask for...flexibility is also required for effective cultural training, and doctrine doesn't provide that yet. Maybe it's better to be ignored so you can do what you want...
Sidenote: The Peace Corps has done this effectively for more than 40 years. They offer immediately relevant language and culture training to the same age group as most junior enlisted and younger NCOs, that they can implement at a highly functional level within 8 weeks. I've been through it. Institute for Defense Analyses and the Strategic Studies Institute have noticed it (report is here...their methods are not secret. Modifications for a military application are already being discussed, but no one would make nearly as much money off of this type of training...;)
One more thing (I swear): If ya'll think it would be hard to a build cultural interaction simulation that's effective, you should tell the companies that are building them like gangbusters, and to the People looking at buying them at I/ITSEC a few weeks ago.