Our Idea: A New Way Forward – Professional Military Education

October 10, 2013

http://def2013.com/my-def-idea-a-new-way-forward-professional-military-education/

Much has been done in the military to improve and adjust our Professional Military Education system. This can be seen in documents like the Army’s Learning Concept 2015, which go a long way to addressing how courses are taught and what the focus of them should be. Whether such documents influence the overall bureaucracy that is the military education system remains to be seen. Anecdotally, great strides have been made at the lower levels (the courses that teach largely the technical and tactical aspects of the military), while much remains to be done at the mid-grade and senior level schooling. We hope to further this change with our ideation group this weekend.

Content and method of teaching aside, there are really three mechanisms that would greatly strengthen our schools: improving instructor selection, creating a more rigorous form for professional accountability, and increasing course standards.

Today, as the ALC 2015 details, institutions within the military “often assign instructors arbitrarily, rather than through a selection process that accounts for subject matter expertise or aptitude to facilitate adult learning. Some instructors have skill gaps due to multiple deployments in non-military occupational specialty (MOS) and/or branch assignments. With few exceptions, instructor positions are not perceived to be career-enhancing assignments.”[i] If we truly desire our PME schools to develop our future (and current) leaders, then we must expect their instructors/facilitators are up to the task. This is not a process that has to be invented. Institutions like the US Military Academy and the US Naval War College have very rigorous selection criteria for their faculty. We should do the same for all our PME schools. This would not only ensure we are getting the people we need for each position, but would allow an opportunity for future instructors to get an advanced degree in the subject they are to teach (as USMA instructors do), while simultaneously increasing the desirability of instructor positions and the impact they will have on their career. We should institute a boarding process within the PME institutions that select men and women for each position, fund them to study in preparation for instruction, then put them to work.

We all know, however, that no matter how proficient the instructor, the student must be prepared and willing to receive the instruction. If the student is not properly prepared before they arrive or held accountable for the material, they not only waste precious education slots, they hamper those around them…and ultimately the profession. We must ensure our units, and the officers themselves, are preparing for PME schools. An example of a possible solution exists to this issue, as well, though it a little more removed than a military academy on the Hudson. The Interwar Prussian/GermanKriegsakademie, founded by Scharnhorst and ultimately headed by Clausewitz and discussed in Jorg Muth’s Command Culture, was designed to pull the operational force up intellectually to a higher level. There were strict educational and testing standards to even enter schooling, and the performance required was even more rigorous. This paradigm made field units focus their efforts on preparing leaders for these schools, putting much of the onus of leader development with commanders. This freed up the schools to focus on intellectually stretching students, not simply bringing them to the lowest common denominator level.

The German military education system was not perfect. They lost two world wars, after all. But they did know how to prepare their personnel for the next level of education, select them to attend, and hold them accountable for performance when they were there. We should emulate this approach. Signs in the Army are that they institutionally understand this; education at the major level is going back to board selection. It remains to be seen if they also improve on the second half of the equation – a rigorous and challenging curriculum that holds its students (and faculty, to be honest) accountable.

Finally, we need to increase course standards to ensure that accountability. The U.S. Army Ranger School expects students to be physically fit and proficient in tasks like land navigation prior to coming to the course. Students that are unable to meet these standards are either recycled or sent home, usually within the first two weeks of the course. Because of the high standards set by the school, units spend a considerable amount of time preparing their soldiers and leaders to successfully graduate this physically and mentally demanding course. There is currently no such intellectual preparation for professional military education.

According to ADRP 6-22 Army Leadership, leaders develop within three domains: The Operational Domain (the field forces), The Institutional Domain (military education system), and the Self Development Domain (the individual). By improving the instructor selection process, increasing the intellectual rigor of our professional military education system, and holding students accountable for what they should already know, the institutional domain has the potential to increase the development in the other two domains. Over the past decade, our professional military education system served as a factory and the demand to rapidly produce graduates was high and warranted. As we take this opportunity to reset our systems, we believe that the time is now for our professional military education to not merely produce graduates, but cultivate a culture of learning, producing professional officers and NCOs who are prepared to lead our military into the uncertainties of the 21st century.

Nathan Finney is a member of the DEF Board. Nathan is also major in the US Army. He is the founder of the Strategy Development Foundation, a member of the Infinity Journal’s Special Advisory Group and an avid writer.

Joe Byerly is a captain in the U.S. Army and is currently serving at an instructor.

[i] TRADOC PAM 525-8-2, “The U.S. Army Learning Concept for 2015,” 20 January 2012, 7.