I’d really hate to be teaching me.

Despite having quit that career over 6 years ago now. I still switch on to teacher mode occasionally. Given that I used to train teachers, sometimes I switch into teacher teacher mode, meaning I’m constantly evaluating the instructors around me.

I’ve mentioned this before but I really am an appalling student. After the whole solo thing I’ve realized that I never gave Bob a straight answer when he asked me anything about going solo. Which is not fair because I’ve gone on and on about how important it is for instructors to understand the psychology of teaching and mentioned several times how fragile student egos are.

Basically whenever the dreaded “S” word came up, I’d refuse to talk about it except to say “I’m never going to agree to this, you need to push me”. I banned anyone else from even saying it. While I was in the flight school signing the paperwork for my solo flight I had a go at the poor kid from dispatch* who was trying to boost my confidence and tell me it was nice and quiet out there, by saying in a terse voice “ We don’t mention the S word around here , thank you!”

As I was doing my walkround Bob was asking me “so mentally how are you feeling today?” I chose to ignore the inherent undertones in his question and tell him I was fine-thank-you-for-asking. He kept pushing though, trying to ask me basically if I was ready to solo today. The most he got out of me was a shoulder shrug and a “nothing’s changed, you’re still going to have to push me”.

It gets worse, even when we were taxiing in and Bob was still trying to ask me if I was ready for him to get out, I was still playing stupid games. I think basically my mouth was saying an emphatic “NO!!! Today’s lesson was bad I’m not ready or capable” but my eyes were pleading with him to get out the plane and make me do this. Of course that non verbal clue doesn’t help when you won’t look the poor guy in the eye in the first place!

I seem to recall pulling exactly the same crap on both Bob and RTH when I decided that I was going to do more than the ten hours basic intro that I’d originally agreed to be talked into. I made the decision inside my head that I was actually going to try for my PPL without actually mentioning it to anyone.  Maybe subconsciously I was expecting to get to a point where Bob said “right, that’s it. You’ve learnt all you’re going to be capable of.” Even so I suspect it’s actually fairly important to communicate to your instructor exactly what you are trying to achieve.

Let us add “mind reading” to the qualities that make a good instructor.

* He got his own back, he’s the one you can see in the picture with the bucket of cold water!