Overview
Mentoring and growing students in the art and science of competitive drill is an exciting challenge that, when executed properly, is fulfilling for all parties. Your students will learn to take their abilities to new heights and you’ll gain the satisfaction of watching them grow into confident, competent performers of military drill.
However.
If you’ve paid attention to the national news conversation surrounding JROTC, you may have noticed a disturbing trend: there have been many, many cases wherein a JROTC instructor develops and inappropriate relationship or exhibits conduct and interactions unbecoming of their role as an educator.
Coaches of sports and other activities are under the same scrutiny. Whether the issue is explicit in nature or involves the perceived mistreatment of the students in their care in some other fashion, we, as coaches, need to be constantly mindful of how we are perceived to be acting in relation to the cadets we teach.
Here are some of the major issues to be aware of as a coach.
Issue 1: Communication with Students
Here is a good rule of thumb:
You should NEVER communicate with a student in an unsupervised manner. Ever. Period.
Too often, well-intentioned professional interactions can become personal when conducted in a form or fashion that lacks supervision or witnessing from other adult individuals. To this end, we should be mindful that communication should never occur one-on-one. There is no credible reason why any student should have our personal phone number, for example. Communication via text should be a strict no-go. This one is simple: if the cadets you teach don’t have your phone number, it’s unlikely they’ll ever try and send you a text. The next one is less straight-forward…
Cadets may reach out to you on your personal social media account to ask questions, especially if that account is easily searchable. In this case, we recommend simply letting the cadet know that you will answer their questions in a different way than directly via private message. It may take you briefing the team specifically en masse about how you’ll answer questions when not present and in-person. It may take copying and pasting the same message back to multiple cadets several times. However, if you make it clear that there is a professional boundary that you refuse to compromise, eventually it will become clear.
So how can we more safely communicate with the students we teach? We recommend setting up a channel of communication such as Discord to assist in communication with students. We actually model this in our use of the platform for the Coaches Network. You know that there are public areas as well as your individual channel. However, you may have also noticed that every member of our leadership team is present in ALL channels. This is intentional and to ensure communication is witnessed by all parties. When we advise drill teams to utilize Discord (or similar), we emphasize that every instructor should be in every single chat area along with any coaches or other adult staff. This gives you an area to communicate relevant specific information to individual cadets without fear of that communication becoming personal or private.
Issue 2: Meeting Outside of Practice
Here is another good rule of thumb:
Students you teach should probably not be at your residence. There’s really nothing happening there that couldn’t be happening somewhere else.
Once you get the cadets in your care hooked on drill, they’re going to want to drill. And it’s going to be natural to want to run with that enthusiasm and maybe even organize some practices outside of their normal schedule. So long as you’ve followed the precautions concerning waivers, parent meets, school approval, etc. outlined so far, extra practice can be a great way to grow a love of drill that spills over into actual practice time.
However, there are ways to accomplish this in a smart, safe fashion that will keep you legally, morally, and ethically protected.
If the school, the instructor/JROTC program, and the parents each individual child approve – in that order – we recommend practicing at school. If that is not possible, securing a safe venue such as a recreation center or other public area is your best bet. We recommend checking with local recreation departments and even many local churches have space they’d gladly make available for the awesome young professionals from the local JROTC program!
If such a venue cannot be located, remember this:
Practice is not more important than your safety, your ability to continue coaching, or your future.
There is really no reason for your cadets to be visiting your place of residence at any time.
Issue 3: Giving Rides
As you coach, you’ll quickly form meaningful relationships that will lead you to knowing things such as who may have a ride to and from practice on a regular basis. One of the BIGGEST pitfalls we see younger coaches make is allowing students to ride in a vehicle with them, especially unsupervised. Your average school teacher is bound by a specific set of guidelines, most of which prohibit transporting a student, especially one-on-one in a private vehicle.
A good rule of thumb is this:
There is no good reason for a student to be in your personal vehicle.
Putting aside the physical dangers such as your liability in event of even a minor crash or traffic-related incident, the perception of you as an adult, even a young adult, transporting a student in your personal vehicle is enough to stay away from this one. Multiple breaking news stories involve inappropriate conduct between a JROTC instructor and a cadet whilst the instructor was providing one-on-one transportation to a student.
Franky, it’s unlikely you can afford either the real financial and legal liability nor the negative perception associated with giving any cadet (or group of cadets) a ride in your vehicle.
We’d recommend attempting to arrange rides with another party, be that other students or their parents/guardians. No function is important enough for you to compromise your safety.
Now, in some JROTC programs the instructors are trusted to give rides to students. Even if this is the case with your program, remember what was discussed in earlier modules: just because the instructor does something doesn’t mean you should do likewise. If asked to provide transportation, responding with a simple, “I’m just not comfortable with that amount of responsibility.” is usually enough!
Issue 4: Online Interactions
This one is easy but it’s one of the most major pitfalls we see amongst coaches, especially younger ones. Meeting live and in-person is one thing but the same concepts that apply to the items listed above also apply to online or virtual spaces.
As previously discussed in the Welcome to Coaching modules, conducting a formal team bonding function virtually (such as through a formalized, communicated, pre-planned video game session) is a safer way to interact remotely.
However, a good rule of thumb is this:
If a student doesn’t have access to you in a particular way in real life, they shouldn’t have that same access just because it’s online.
We mainly see this play out concerning online gaming or other informal modes of communication within (or outside of) drill.
We understand that as a coach, you may be fairly active in communal spaces where drillers of all ages interact regularly. In fact, such involvement may have led to an interest in coaching in the first place. However, once we assume the responsibility of teaching drill, we need to be mindful that our conduct online is really no different than our conduct in-person.
In fact, because everything conducted online can be easily screen-recorded, screen-shot(ted?), etc. it will probably garner much, much more scrutiny.
Issue 5: Personal Friendships (or More…)
As we’ve mentioned, one of the most rewarding aspects of teaching drill is developing meaningful, professional relationships to those you teach. Your presence and support can help students navigate what we all know is a very difficult stage of life. Hopefully, your ability to develop relationships to the cadets you instruct will be a pivotal tool in your teaching practice.
However.
Whether recently-graduated or not, we need to be very, very careful about how we, as coaches, allow ourselves to feel regarding those relationships.
Here is a good rule of thumb:
The cadets you teach are not your friends. You should not be seeking friendship. You should not feel emotionally fulfilled when they offer what appears to be friendship to you.
Many, many negative interactions start as two people with a common interest sharing a bond over that shared passion. Because there is a power dynamic at play with your being responsible for each student you teach, YOU are the gatekeeper of maintaining professional relationships.
For example:
Having common interests outside of drill is normal. Sharing an interesting in video gaming is a tool that can connect you to a student and make the coaching process more smooth. Having discussions about this shared interest in the name of developing a positive, professional relationship is fine.
You, as the coach, allowing that discussion to evolve into a relationship where you are legitimately invested emotionally in the companionship of that student is wrong. Looking forward to the next time you can speak to that student because of that emotional fulfillment is wrong. Period.
Another example:
Being excited about drill is normal. Sharing that excitement with the cadet commander through involvement in the planning and execution of practice is normal. Having discussions about the future of the team and how to continuously improve in the name of developing a positive, professional relationship is fine.
You, as the coach, allowing that discussion to evolve into a relationship where you are legitimately invested emotionally in the companionship of that student is wrong. Looking forward to the next time you can speak to that student because of that emotional fulfillment is wrong. Period.
Do you notice a pattern here?
See, here’s the problem. If YOU aren’t careful – because your students are in a position of lesser power and are NOT responsible to “know better” nor “be old enough” nor “should’ve know that” – developing relationships that are personal to YOU can often lead to all the issues mentioned above. Sure, it starts as sharing an interest in _____ which leads to private conversations, completely innocent ones, about ____, which eventually progress to meeting up outside of school to partake, completely innocently, in ____.
Your BEST case scenario is that the adults – such as parents, teachers, and administrators – look at your relationship to that student and go, “Yeah, that’s weird.” And that’s the BEST case you can hope for.
The WORST case? Well, Google “JROTC instructor accused of” and there you have it.
So what’s the alternative? The obvious answer is, “Keep your relationship professional.” But that isn’t enough. (And it won’t be enough on your test.) You must be open and honest with yourself. And if you find yourself in a position where you crave the attention, company, support, or interaction with one (or more) of your students, you have the moral and ethical responsibility to distance yourself in any way possible from that situation up to, and including, leaving your coaching position.
Conclusion
Coaching is incredibly rewarding. But coaching is not more important than the safety of the students you coach. Coaching is not more important than your safety and security. Coaching is not more important than your reputation.
Moreover, it’s IMPOSSIBLE to be accused of doing something inappropriate if you were never anywhere near something that could place you in a compromising position. For example, you cannot be accused of inappropriately texting a student if that student never had your phone number. You can never be accused of acting inappropriately towards a student while giving them a ride if they are never allowed in your vehicle. You can never be accused of communicating inappropriately in a video game if they don’t have your gamer tag. Easy, right? In practice, it might be more challenging but it’s honestly just that simple.
Act mindfully and always remember:
These are other people’s children. They are not your friends. They are not your peers. They belong to someone else and you have the legal, moral, and ethical responsibility to honor that with everything decision you make.