Worse, we'll be sitting in on a conversation when someone says something that we don't understand, and we just let it pass. We miss the opportunity to increase our knowledge because we don't want to display what we consider to be ignorance by asking a question. The worst part about the foregoing is that every bit of it applies to flight training. And it applies to instructors as much as it does to students.
Students should recognize that in any form of learning, instructors often assume that students know more about the subject than they really do. That can be a crippling assumption, because it leaves those students behind, constantly struggling to catch up.
Instructors do that because, in part, it's impossible to know exactly how much aeronautical knowledge the student brings to the table. Some have gone to ground school, some haven't. Some have been aero junkies their entire lives and know as much as we think we do. Some are absolute babes in the woods. Instructors try to ascertain where each student is in the scheme of things, but they have to assume a basic level of mechanical understanding and start talking at that level.
When teaching the preflight, some instructors will give an aerodynamics lesson about each part: "When preflighting the propeller, feel for nicks and notice its airfoil shape. It's a little wing and literally lifts us forward." Others will stop at "feel for nicks" and leave the theoretical discussion for the classroom -- or skip it altogether, assuming the student knows what each part is for and how it works, even though that may not be the case.
It would be great if every student came equipped with a little "knowledge quotient" stamped on his forehead so we instructors would know exactly how much aeronautical stuff is tucked away in the folds of his brain. But, they don't. The worst possible scenario is when the instructor talks over the student's head while he or she suffers in silence. A student who just sits there appears to be absorbing knowledge, which makes him his own worst enemy. He's inadvertently transmitting several erroneous messages to the instructor, including:
- "Because I'm not saying anything, I understand everything you're telling me."
- "You have hit upon the most effective way of communicating with me, and I'm absorbing it all because you are so incredibly good."
Here's what actually may be going on in the student's mind:
- "What did he just say? I only recognized three words in the last four sentences, but I'm not going make myself look like an idiot by telling him that."
- "I feel as if I'm trying to drink from a firehose, and he doesn't have a clue."
From the outside a drowning student looks the same as a student who is prospering. However, when that student tries to translate what he has heard into action, it usually comes out all wrong. The student was told to do something, he tried, but because he didn't understand it, he didn't succeed. This is a simple matter of failed communication. Unfortunately, what the instructor sees is a student who is having trouble, but the instructor doesn't know exactly why. He doesn't know whether the student doesn't understand the concept or whether the student can't perform because he has some sort of motor function difficulty, or something else.
For that reason, the instructor may repeat what he just said, demonstrate it the same way he did before, and hope that the student gets it. Enlightened instructors will ask a few well-directed questions in an effort to understand -- but if the student doesn't acknowledge his lack of understanding, the instructor will return to explaining and demonstrating.
When an instructor repeats something without having received any kind of feedback from the student, he is instructing blind. He doesn't understand the exact cause of the problem, so he doesn't know how to modify his teaching method. Repetition is the basis of most instruction, but if a concept isn't understood, then the repetition isn't going to work nearly as well as it should, and the learning process is drawn out and inefficient. This is a very frustrating situation for both student and instructor. What's the fix?
The burden of improving instructor/student communication rests squarely on the student's shoulders. All he has to say is "Can you repeat that?" or utter even a simple "Huh?" and any instructor worth his salt will realize instantly that his words missed the target or his demonstration wasn't clear.
Any questioning response from a student is enough to make an instructor reevaluate his techniques, but it helps a lot if the student pictures himself as a part of the teaching process. Learning leaps forward when the student understands that by asking questions and making those questions very specific, he has greatly tightened the learning process. Now the instructor knows exactly what has to be taught or corrected. Repetition is absolutely necessary and is at the core of most learning processes. But unreasoning, undirected repetition can hide a lot of instructional misunderstandings. If a given maneuver -- a turn around a point, for instance -- is demonstrated and flown enough times, with the instructor saying, "Steepen the bank right here; see how the radius changes?" the student eventually will be able to do the maneuver without understanding a single thing about the wind, the increasing speed, the centrifugal force, or the maneuver's purpose. The instructor believes that the student is doing the task. In reality, the student doesn't have the foggiest idea why he's doing the maneuver or what's happening while he's doing it.
If the student remains quiet and doesn't ask questions, the instructor still thinks that his words are hitting home and doesn't know the student is simply mimicking his moves and doing everything by rote. In this type of instruction the instructor is teaching a monkey to pull a lever to get a banana, rather than developing a thinking, understanding aviator. The unfortunate thing, however, is that he may not know it until too late.
The student has to ask questions. No matter how small a misunderstanding seems to be, if the instructor says something that doesn't make sense to you, it's important that you stop him right there and get it clarified. Some examples:
- You don't get a handle on the more-lift-means-more-drag concept (see "Camber is the Key," November 2004 AOPA Flight Training).
- You hear the CFI saying "watch your nose attitude," but you don't know what you should be looking for.
- You hear the words "plan ahead" but don't know what they actually mean.
- The instructor repeatedly tells you to "hold it off" during landing, and you don't know why.
Much of the misunderstanding, especially at the beginning, has to do with unfamiliar phrases or familiar words and phrases used in unfamiliar applications. The general population uses words like "flare" and "rotate," and we always try to "plan ahead," but somehow, when we're first flying with an instructor, these terms take on entirely new and sometimes very specific meanings. The tower controller says, "I'm going to spin you one time on downwind for spacing," and your brain immediately squinches up as it ponders, But I thought spins were bad. You're sitting on the centerline ready for takeoff and the instructor says, "Drop the hammer, put it on the mains, nail the attitude, and watch for the torque on liftoff. Keep the ball centered, and cancel any drift with aileron." What?
Unfortunately, we instructors don't always hear what we're saying, so we do two things wrong: We use words that are specific to aviation or have aviation definitions different than in the real world. And, we tend to use jargon that we may have made up and doesn't exist anywhere else on the planet.
As a student, it is hypercritical that you question any word or phrase that doesn't ring true to you. Don't wait, expecting to figure out its meaning in context, because by the time you do, a dozen others may have popped up that you don't understand. You're learning a new language here as well as a new skill, and it's going to be difficult enough living in this new world without having troubles understanding the natives.
Flight instructing is not a one-size-fits-all endeavor, and the primary chore of any flight instructor is trying to tailor each lesson to match each student. And that's not always easy. We try really hard to "read" each student, helping them to deal with the emotional and psychological effects of flight and trying to figure out which language fits them best. To help us, we depend on a wide variety of feedback from the student, some of which is unintentional.
If, for instance, the instructor finds the student is an engineer or has a technical background, the instructor will guide his vocabulary accordingly. Terms like vectors and gradients mean something to people with a tech background, while others need more verbiage to flesh out the concepts. If the person has a background heavy in the arts and appears to have no mechanical understanding, then the instructor will try to avoid certain types of presentations and steer clear of those phrases and words that are peculiar to aviation without first defining them. But, that's not always easy.
Only the student knows for sure whether the verbal seeds are being sown in fertile ground. The student is the only one in the cockpit who truly knows his level of understanding, and from day one he has to communicate that to the instructor through the simple expediency of asking questions. Just know that you'll endear yourself to your instructor, make his job much easier, and facilitate your own success if you guide him by asking questions.
The instructor is trying to fill in the empty potholes that litter your road to becoming an aviator, but he's guessing where some of those potholes lie. Point them out to him so he can smooth them out with a shovel full of knowledge. That will make both of your aviation lives more enjoyable.
Budd Davisson is an aviation writer/photographer and magazine editor who has written approximately 2,200 articles and has flown more than 300 different types of aircraft. A CFI since 1967, he teaches about 30 hours a month in his Pitts S-2A Special. Visit his Web site.
Illustrations by Carole Verbyst
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