Well, this post is an attempt to
avoid an endless cataloging of what our personal carry habits are. We can spend bandwidth better than that, I think.
When
mousegun responded to my query earlier--about whether or not his teaching included an overemphasis on the carry-er's "awesome responsibility"--he said
"...It was not overemphasized but it was stated and if that was the deterring factor then I can't honestly believe that the person hearing the statement is ready for carrying.
"Thinking of carrying a weapon as an "awesome responsibility" is just one way of separating a truly responsible person from one that someday may make it bad for all of us. There are of course, many others."
I am now wearing my (former) educator's hat and I'm picking up hinky undercurrents, so to speak. It does seem to me that your approach to your teaching this subject has two characteristics to it that are not necessarily desirable: The first is that you are focussing on a very abstract concept--'awesome responsibility'--that is also very subjective.
In doing so, you are really emphasizing personal judgement of an educational 'goal' and not objectively evaluating a student's performance criteria.
The second element in your teaching style is that it does sound like you are teaching what is NOT satisfactory instead of what is. Oversimplifying it, you are saying something like "...if you don't understand this (responsibility), then don't do that (carry a gun). You are (inadvertently) reinforcing their reasons NOT to carry. Add to that the (probable) generally-negative image of lethal self-defense naive / new gun owners have from the MSM reporting, and what they have gained--besides basic proficiency, hopefully--is a mindset that emphasizes "no" as a response to this activity. So, being anxious to begin with (they are new to this), 'awesome responsibility' only increases their anxiety--and they avoid the activity (carrying).
Note that my comments do not deny the validity of the notion of "awesome responsibility"--that's true enough, I share that understanding with you. However, that's a decision made early on in the whole process of becoming a carry-er, and one that a responsible user revisits only infrequently.
So, think about your teaching style some more. Look for a way to 1) acknowledge the awesome responsibility early on, perhaps in the your introductory comments, and from then on 2) focus on the objective criteria--firearm familiarization, basic proficiency and a rudimentary understanding of how to achieve satisfactory response to a lethal threat.
IMO. FWIW.
Jim H.