Ah
Ah, the old argument. I would say cut the guy some slack. There are quite a few schools and instructors that teach with the attitude primary method and it works very well. Some of you guys are giving him the impression that airspeed primary is the only way that is ever taught, which is incorrect. EGKB this discussion is almost as old as powered flight itself.
Part of the reason that flying was often taught with power as an altitude control and elevator pitch as a speed control was a hangover from the days of early underpowered aircraft, when they often made glide or low power approaches because of the higher probability of engine failure. This often put them dangerously close to the underside of the lift/drag curve if they got too low and pitched up even a little so they would need lots more of the available power to make it to the runway, so the thinking was....why not apply the power first before the airspeed got too low when you pitched up, kind of an insurance policy against excessive angle of attack.
I don't think he's as naive and arrogant as some of you guys think, he knows airplanes don't fly around like spaceships in a video game, right EGKB?
I'm not going to get into the technical aspects of attitude flying here as I'm not an instructor and these are things he needs to sort out between him and his instructor(s).
At the end of the day the important thing is that pilots need to develop an innate understanding of angle of attack and most do develop this whichever method they initially learned with.
Bottom line, ALWAYS listen to your instructor but if you're really not happy find another one or another school because there are schools that teach attitude reference flying, but it's not something you can learn solo, you have to be shown how to do it properly.