I would have favoured teaching the positive aspects of slowing the aircraft to about 70 KTS before deploying any flap thereby avoiding an uncomfortable amount of pitch change and being gentile on the aircraft.
Nothing wrong with that at all, except sometimes flaps are good for slowing the aircraft down and one should know what to expect dropping the flaps at the top of the white arc. Also, dropping the flaps at low speed, one needs to be aware of the increased drag and not lose too much speed after.
who would fly ay 1000 ft at night, what about lowest safe?
Minimum safe was about the height I cruised at. I also had obstacle and terrain awareness on 2 separate devices, 1 of which also showed me the clearance before I took off. That said, flying at 1000 AGL at night isn't great, and contributed to where I ended up (I diverted). The reason I was at 1000 AGL was because the traffic area of our "big" airport is nearby, and everyone VFR gets pushed down by ATC to the same height. Trust me, I don't like flying at only 1000, especially at night. In my defence, there's no alternative (except to not fly), and it's considered perfectly normal and safe by everyone (probably because of the lack of alternatives).