Squaretail wrote: ↑Thu Jan 27, 2022 11:25 am
photofly wrote: ↑Thu Jan 27, 2022 9:15 am
You're still stuck in the mentality that primary flight instruction is for pilots. This is not surprising, given that you are a pilot, and this is a forum for pilots. Do you think grade 1 teachers think it "sucks" that they have to teach the three times table to their whole class at once because the whole class is at the same phase?
Your comparison isn't accurate though. Teachers by and large don't do the same things repetitively. For example, while the teacher may be working on the times three table and probably reviewing it in successive classes, At most they may have to go through that lesson with 4 sets of kids a day if a teacher taught a specific subject, but tomorrow's lessons are going to be different. An appeal to instruction is seeing progress in students, but as an instructor, you may see no progress - you might not see your students for a length of time - the more accurate equivalent would be if school teachers had to repeat the same classes, with different students every time on a more frequent basis. In some ways line instructing is more akin to assembly line work. If we are going to keep up with the comparison between teachers and instructors though, there are some critical differences. How would most grade school teachers feel if at the end of each class they then had to sell the kids on returning for the next class? How would many feel if three quarters of each class of kids randomly quit?
You raise a lot of valid downsides, but like some of those in your previous post, those are to do with individual environments. There's no law of flight instruction that requires you to need to "sell" the next lesson. There's no law of flight instruction that says any students have to quit, randomly or otherwise.
Your teaching environment meant you had to spend time doing customer service, pumping fuel, and answering the phone. If your teaching environment means you don't get to see students progress - that's 100% your FTU's fault. It's not
inevitable in the endeavour of teaching people to fly. It sounds like you taught in a shitty environment. I'm sorry about that - but don't generalize from it. Treat it instead as impetus to change your environment to get rid of the things you don't like.
Flight instruction isn't about flying. It's about teaching. It's a job for teachers who can fly. Not for pilots.
Well I can agree on that, the main problem being that the venn diagram for those two pools of talent is small. I would argue its for both. I mean you don't have to be a novelist to be an English teacher, but it makes a difference if you are also knowledgeable in and have a love of the subject matter. I mean we've all probably remember a day when the Gym teacher subbed in. I don't recall it being terribly productive.
Let's share a little secret, shall we? Flying a 172 isn't difficult. When taught right people can do it tolerably well with 50 hours of training, and can charge the public for it at 200 hours. The pool of talent of people who could fly a 172, if they wanted to, is nearly unlimited. It's a lot easier than driving, and waaaay easier than riding a motorcycle well. That's why teaching it is like grade 1, rather than college level English Lit. Everyone knows - or could know - the subject matter for teaching basic flying.
Some people would find it difficult to review the three times table for the seventh time in a week. No criticism is due to them - but they shouldn't teach grade 1. Some people would find it challenging to fly the circuit for the seventh time in a week, and I respect that, but they shouldn't be teaching ab-initio flying. In both cases it's an indication you're in it for the subject matter, not the teaching, and therefore in the wrong job.
Here's something Richard Feynman said about teaching. I submit it applies to flying circuits in a 172, just as much as it does to teaching elementary quantum theory:
If you're teaching a class, you can think about the elementary things that you know very well. These things are kind of fun and delightful. It doesn't do any harm to think them over again. Is there a better way to present them? The elementary things are easy to think about; if you can't think of a new thought, no harm done; what you thought about it before is good enough for the class. If you do think of something new, you're rather pleased that you have a new way of looking at it.
The questions of the students are often the source of new research. They often ask profound questions that I've thought about at times and then given up on, so to speak, for a while. It wouldn't do me any harm to think about them again and see if I can go any further now. The students may not be able to see the thing I want to answer, or the subtleties I want to think about, but they remind me of a problem by asking questions in the neighborhood of that problem. It's not so easy to remind yourself of these things.
DId you hear the one about the jurisprudence fetishist? He got off on a technicality.