Insights

While teaching my grandson basic electronics, I came upon the following commentary by Glen Williamson of Williamson Labs:

“To teach is a somewhat meaningless term. I cannot teach anyone anything; I can only help them to learn something—maybe. I can try to be an enabler.

“To really learn requires full participation by the learner: Also, and more important, learning is not a linear process. No one learns in a straight line, logically or sequentially. I have only met one person who claimed to learn in a linear fashion; he is feeling much better now, and will be released next September.

“Learning is the accumulation of bits and pieces of knowledge and information; for everyone these can be different: it is the accumulation that is important.

“Oh, yeah, there is the absolutely most important required ingredient: curiosity! Without curiosity you may as well close the book and take up taxidermy.”

Williamson’s commentary shows that he comes from the world of practicality and common sense, as do his explanations of electronics. His observations on teaching are directly applicable to flight training.

Good flight training is not linear, that’s for certain. As Len Morgan, a retired Braniff Airlines captain, once said, “Flying is just like playing cards. You always use the same deck but never get the same hand twice.”

That insight is found in such things as scenario-based training, where most flights—particularly during cross-country training—contain an element of surprise: an unplanned event such as a simulated system failure or environmental condition that tests a student’s ability to use good judgment and not compromise flight safety.

In affluent areas, it’s not uncommon for someone to walk into a flight school and say, “I have the money, teach me to fly.” And I’ve known a few such individuals who have already made a deposit on or purchased an airplane—high-performance, of course, not a trainer. That should raise a red flag in the mind of any flight instructor, because the person in question obviously thinks flight training is a linear process.

When training begins, the first stumbling block is studying. Most of these people are extremely busy. They have little if any spare time. That’s when the instructor must state an important flight training axiom: “No study, no flyee.”

Williamson states that curiosity is the most important ingredient for learning. If someone does not study, they obviously do not possess curiosity. And that would continue even if they did become certificated, which means flight safety would be compromised and the potential for FAA violations would increase.

The importance of individual backgrounds, which always vary, cannot be overstated. When an identical flight lesson is given to several students, each will assimilate the lesson differently. That’s why a good flight instructor will take time to understand a student’s background and will always ask questions during the pre- and post-flight briefings to ensure proper student knowledge.

You say, “My instructor does not conduct those briefings.” Get another instructor.