A Very Generalized Lesson

A long time ago, I wrote an article about bully coaches, in particular adults who seem to get off on browbeating and humiliating little children in the setting of organized sports.  I can now expand that category to driver's education, as I have discovered some apparently sick individuals are "instructors".  One student inevitably hits one of the countless orange cones lined around the very demanding driving course as obstacles and one of these types, riding on a bicycle, chases after the young teenage driver, yelling at her, "You're dragging around a child!" How utterly tasteless and mean to say that, when the young students are trying their hardest to develop the motor and coordination skills needed to become safe and courteous drivers.  Another bully instructor, when a student notifies him that she hasn't had the opportunity that others have been given to practice some of the more difficult elements of the course that she would soon be tested and graded on, decides to ridicule her for being upset in front of the whole class, eliciting derisive laughter from other students. Or how about sticking a couple of instructors-in-training together in the back seat of a training car and let them take turns almost constantly yelling at a poor student driver to do this and not do that...

I am very, very disappointed at what I am hearing about the unprofessional, overly aggressive and even cruel behavior on the part of paid workers who are supposed to be teaching our children how to drive, at least in this backwoods town of mine with its pathetic pretensions of academic and cultural sophistication.  I wonder how in the world anyone in these classes will learn the crucial values of courtesy and respect toward others while behind the wheel.  And then I look around me on the road at the epidemic rudeness coming from other drivers and realize that perhaps I am picking on these instructors too much.  Maybe instead, they just represent a random sample from the general population regarding their (lack of) character and I should finally just cut to the chase and admit it to myself: these people, these bullies, are thickly spread throughout the population.  But there ARE some awfully nice people, thankfully...