What’s the most difficult question you’ve been asked as a maintenance instructor

"Where are the prints?!"

This was the final question in an onslaught of verbal feedback, comments, and critiques I received from my students back in 2019. I had two years of instructor experience and was teaching a class that had been meticulously rehearsed in preparation for an accreditation visit. I knew the training material well and transferred that knowledge effectively enough for all the students to pass the class. As we wrapped up, I asked the students how they felt about my first big system-level class, and they did not hold back.

"Why was the exam from memory when we don't work from memory in the plant?" "Why didn't we refer to the vendor documents?" "Why didn't we practice more on the mock-up?" And so on.

The final question was from a highly respected senior technician. As he flipped through the 8.5 × 11 binder of materials, he asked, "Where are the prints?!"-referring to engineering and design drawings of plant systems.

I gave a standard answer about the line [management] having approved the training to meet the needs of the shop [Maintenance Department], but I wasn't about to let that be my out. He had a good point. Where were the prints? Sure, I had them on some slides, but we didn't walk through them, and nothing in the lesson plan directed me on how to use them. That didn't sit right with me, so I made a promise that I would do better, and I did.

From that day forward, I never taught material that I hadn't personally scrubbed and scrutinized with my shop. My new lesson plans became guideposts to direct us to prints and procedures whenever possible. Exams allowed for plant references but now contained higher-cognitive-level questions. Any simplified diagrams that weren't purged were compared against the plant prints, all copied to an 11 × 17 binder, all awaiting the elucidation that the inevitable flood of notes and highlights would bring.

That question was hard, and the answer was harder. It's taken years of improvement, but that question helped me to become a great instructor. My favorite outcome is seeing students take their print binders back to their desks after class. These color-filled mazes of lines, symbols, and text have become an edifice of their new qualification. The binders, carrying the echoes of my teachings, will be the references they use to reignite any forgotten knowledge when a new problem vexes them. I just think that's neat.

Blye Widmar ([email protected]) is a senior maintenance instructor at Constellation Nuclear's Clinton nuclear power plant.