Originally Posted by
Whirlybird
Excellent advice.
But do you learn that from years and hours of instructing? Somehow I think that's where judgement and maturity comes in, rather than anything specifically to do with flying.
I've been saying ever since I did my FI course that the course is far too much to do with flying, and far, far too little about with dealing with people, human factors, individual differences, and similar subjects. This thread is making me even more certain that this is the case.
I think it depends on where you took the course / who with. I started at one school, and transferred for a number of reasons to another part-way through. The school I ended up at covered the whole of the above - different teaching methods/styles, how different students react to different styles of teaching...with probably as much time spent on this aspect as on the flying parts (which was in no way skimped on as a result). School no 1 only taught the content of each standard exercise, and almost totally ignored the fact that different student would react in different ways to the same delivery methods.
My advice would be to check out potential FI schools as thoroughly as you checked out (hopefully) PPL, CPL etc training organisations. You'll be spending a fair whack of cash with them - get good value for money. (You may also find that having been taught at a school with a good/bad reputation can influence whether you get a FI job later on).