This article was first published in the September/October 2023 issue of Outdoor Oklahoma magazine.
School always came easy for me. I never really had to study, and I certainly never did much in the way of homework, but I still scored well enough on the tests I took to keep my grades up and my momma happy. Because it came so easy for me, I never had to suffer through the sweaty palmed anxiety that so many students experience when taking tests. While my classmates were squirming in their seats and chewing their fingernails down to the quick, I’d be sitting slouched at my desk, as cool as a cucumber.
But that cool as a cucumber composure was absolutely pickled in anxiety one Saturday afternoon in the September of 1986 when I sat down to take the only test that’s ever cost me a good night’s sleep – the test that would determine whether or not I passed my Hunter Education course.
I was ten years old and wanted nothing more in life than to become a deer hunter, just like my dad. While other boys my age dreamed of planting a flag on the moon or batting cleanup for the Yankees, all I could think about was chasing big bucks. My dream of becoming a deer hunter couldn’t be realized without a passing grade on the Hunter Education test, so I was under a lot of pressure. Considerably more pressure than any math class I’d ever sat in, that’s for sure. But the pressure I already felt was ratcheted up a notch by the fact that my dad worked for Oklahoma’s Department of Wildlife. What would my friends say if I failed my Hunter Education test? Every one of them believed that I had a built in advantage simply because there was a Wildlife Department pickup parked in front of my house every night. Never mind that dad was the central region fisheries supervisor and that there wouldn’t be a single question related to fisheries biology on the test, all my friends expected a perfect score from me. I’d never felt so much pressure in my young life.
The Hunter Education course was tougher back then. Yeah, yeah, I realize that saying that makes me sound like an old fogey, but hear me out. I may not have had to walk miles to school, in the snow, uphill both ways – nothing as cliche as that – but I did grow up in an age when teachers didn’t have the educational resources they do now. There were no PowerPoint presentations or video clips to catch or keep a student’s attention when I was in school. And frankly, I’m not sure the teachers I had would have bothered with those things even if they had been available, because students in my day were expected to sit still, listen close and learn what was being taught. I’m sure the class I sat through only lasted eight hours, just like it does today, but to a ten year old full of nervous energy, eight hours of lecture on a Saturday might as well have been an eternity. That’s probably why all I really remember about the Hunter Education course is droning lecture followed by frantic memorization.
Today, Oklahoma’s Wildlife Department provides its potential hunters with all kinds of educational advantages, making the Hunter Education course that much easier. A quick search of the wildlife department’s website turns up tons of useful information, including this synopsis of the Hunter Education course: “Hunter education covers a variety of topics including firearms safety, wildlife identification, wildlife conservation and management, survival, archery, muzzleloading and hunter responsibility.”
To that end, prospective students are offered valuable resources to prepare themselves for the course. The 80 page Hunter Education Manuel is chock full of colorful graphics and bullet-pointed sidebars that both summarize and simplify pertinent topics. I’ve been wandering the woods for better than 35 years, and a recent scroll through that document was every bit as educational for an experienced hunter like me as it is for those that are new to the sport.
Available, too, is a Hunter Education Study Guide that’s designed to accompany the Education Manuel. The Study Guide is eight pages’ worth of fill in the blank questions, giving students the opportunity to make sure they’ve learned key concepts. Both documents can be viewed or downloaded with a click of the mouse, and when used together, they make it possible for a hunter to learn all that he or she needs to know not just to pass the Hunter Education course, but to be safe in the deer woods or the duck blind. The Wildlife Department has offered a home study option since 1998, and thanks to a partnership with the National Rifle Association, the Hunter Education course is even available online!
But we didn’t access to any of that when I sat down to take the test. My head was still swimming with information when the course’s instructor abruptly ended his lecture, placed a piece of paper upside down on the table in front of me and handed me a number two pencil. At the instructors’ cue, every student in the class turned over that piece of paper and went to work. Every student except for me. I took one look at the first question and instantly forgot everything I’d just been taught. For the first five minutes of the time we were allotted to take the test, I did nothing but sit in my seat and panic. I sweated and I shook. I did everything in my power to hold back a flood of tears that were threatening to fall. Failing the test would be embarrassment enough, but crying in front of my friends would be the death of me. The very thought of such a meltdown only served to swell the lump in my throat. It wasn’t long before the dam of my resolve broke, and I only just managed to pass off a choked sob as a cough.
Somehow, that break in my composure relieved some of the pressure I was under, and I took another look at the test in front of me. When I did, the hamster wheel in my head started spinning again. I remembered some of what I’d just been taught and answered a few of the test’s questions. I relied on the things my dad had taught me and answered a few others, things like ‘treat every gun as if it’s loaded’ and ‘always cut away from yourself.’ Common sense answered a few more questions, and as it turned out, there wasn’t a single subject on the test that I didn’t already have at least a basic understanding of. My confidence grew with every question I answered, and I wound up breezing my way through the very test that only minutes before had threatened to break me. By the time I’d answered the last question, I was no longer worried about failing the test or being embarrassed in front of my friends. I knew I had passed. And I had deer to hunt.
Wright Outdoors 