In the otherwise lovely clear sky there was this one big cloud so popped him in there, his first taste of REAL IMC.
As a student currently undergoing IMCR training ... yup, much more valuable than messing around with foggles and hoods and stuff, only being in a real cloud can teach the student what it really feels like to really be in a real cloud.
The foggles and stuff are play-acting, there are just too many visual cues from lighting levels and so on even if you don't catch a glimpse of sky or ground out of the corner of your eye - flying in real IMC is, it seems to me, the only way to train people to stay alive in real IMC.