You must be technically competent before you can teach others, but your technical competence must be supplemented by the ability to organize information, to present it effectively, and to arouse and keep the interest of your trainees.

You will find excellent general information on how to plan, carry out, and evaluate an instructional program in Military Requirements for Petty Officer 3 & 2, NAVEDTRA 10056 (current edition) and in Military Requirements for Petty Officer 1 & C, NAVEDTRA 10057 (current edition).

The present discussion does not include basic information of the type given in these References; instead, it deals with some of the difficulties peculiar to the training of engineroom and auxiliary personnel and some of the ways in which you can overcome or minimize these difficulties.

What kinds of things cause special problems in the training of engineroom personnel? For one thing, the interrelationship of propulsion plant operations. Each person must be trained to per-form not only as an individual but also as a member of a team. Take for instance the duties of the watchstanders. They are very closely related, and the actions taken by one person depend in some way upon the actions taken by other persons. From a long-range point of view, however, the teamwork required for engineroom operations can actually be turned to a training advantage. As a person is being trained for one specific duty, he must of necessity be learning something about the other duties. As a rule, therefore, the first part of a persons engineroom training may take quite a while, but the last part will be comparatively fast.

The procedures for training a new person in engineroom operations vary considerably, depending upon such factors as the ships steaming schedule, the condition of the engineroom machinery, the number of experienced personnel available to assist in the training, and the amount of time that can be devoted to the training. In general, however, you will probably begin to train a person to act as messenger. Then before the trainee is assigned to any actual duty, of course, the trainee should be introduced to the engineroom and become familiar with the location of all machinery, equipment, piping, and valves. The trainee must also be instructed in certain basic safety precautions and be specifically warned about the dangers of turning valve wheels or tampering with machinery. IF IN DOUBT, ASK QUESTIONS! is a pretty good rule for any new person in the engineroom to follow.

A person ready to be trained in the duties of messenger should be shown all the gages that are in use, told about what the gages indicate and shown how to take readings. The reason why the readings are important should be explained. The trainee should understand exactly how often each gage must be read and how to make accurate entries in the engineroom log. When you are sure the trainee understands everything about gages, teach the trainee how to check lube oil levels and how to clean metal edge type filters and basket-type strainers.

For a while you will have to keep a close watch on the trainees performance of these duties. When the trainee becomes proficient in the duties of messenger, start the training in throttlemans duties, First, let the trainee observe the throttleman. Then, if conditions permit, let the trainee start and secure machinery.

As far as manual skills are concerned, the throttlemans job is probably easier than the messengers job. But the throttle watch requires the utmost vigilance and reliability, and a new per-son will have a lot to learn before being trusted to stand the throttle watch alone. Personnel should always be started out under the supervision of an experienced throttleman, and should remain under this supervision until the petty officer in charge of the engineroom is fully satisfied that the trainee is completely qualified for this duty.

In training engineroom personnel who have not had previous engineroom experience, remember than an engineroom can be a com-plicated and confusing place to someone who walks into it for the first time. A lot of equip-ment is crammed into a small space, and a lot of complex actions are going on at once. When train-ing new personnel, try to think back to the time when you first went into an engineroom. What aspects of engineroom operations were most con-fusing to you at first? What kind of training would have made your learning easier and faster? By analyzing your own early experience and reac-tions, you get a bearing on what a new person may be experiencing and you may be able to provide more effective training.

When you are training new personnel, remember that they vary widely in their methods of learning and in their rates of learning. Some people will learn most effectively if you give them an overall view of main engine operations, including a certain amount of theory, before going into the details of the hardware and the manual operations. Others will learn most effectively if they are taught some manual skills before getting too much involved with theory. Some people learn manual skills rapidly but take a long time to absorb the theory; for others, the reverse is true. And, of course, some people learn everything slowly. Some trainees benefit from patient, almost endless repetition of information; others may become bored and restless if you go over the same point just once too often. The important thing to remember is that your training efforts will be most successful if you are able to observe and allow for the individual differences that are bound to exist. Closely related to this point is another: Dont make snap judgments about peoples abilities until they have had a chance to DEMONSTRATE them. You may turn out to be very wrong if you make snap judgments on the basis of a general impression, such as appearance, or the rate at which they learn when they first come into the engineroom.

When training personnel who have already had some engineroom experience but who have been on some other type ship, you may find that a certain amount of retraining is needed before the individual can qualify as an engineroom watchstander on your ship. No two enginerooms are precisely alike in all details, and no two main engines that appear to be identical behave in precisely the same way under all conditions. Each engine has its own individuality, and operating personnel must adjust to the engine in order to obtain the best results. Practically all Enginemen learn this sooner or later; you can speed up the learning process by encouraging engineroom personnel to notice and to discuss differences between engines.

Because of the necessity for strict observance of safety precautions, all engineroom operational training must be rigidly controlled and supervised. On-the-job training is necessary if an individual is to acquire the actual skills needed for main engine operation; however, the person must not be allowed to learn by trial and error, since errors could be too dangerous and too costly. Safety precautions should be taught from the very beginning and should be emphasized constantly throughout the training program.