what do you do when......?
 

Need advice!!!

what does one do when another instructors' student approaches you and says :
"I am not happy with my instructor...would YOU take me on as your student???"

When I first became an instructor, I was given some VERY VERY wise words of warning...."DO NOT STEP ON OTHER PEOPLES TOES!!"

I took this warning seriously, and as such, have managed to avoid conflict (so far)

Whilst students come and go...you may have to work with fellow instructors for a long time to come.I have, in the past, brought the students request to their instructors attention, in privacy of course, without actually replying to the student first. In one case, I had a student who said... "If I have to fly with him again..I shall quit flying".
So...WHAT DO I DO ????

This one's pretty easy.
Take the student on.
Be straight with the other instructor and ask the student wether he or you should tell the other instructor what's going on.
Anyone with enough maturity to instruct should be able to accept that they're not going to be the ideal instructor for every different personality of student. In any case, if the student's not happy then the instructor probably isn't either and will probably be relieved.

*cringe*

Been there, done that.

If, as Pondlife says, the other instructor is mature you will probably be OK. Perhaps the CFI would be a better sounding board for the Stude?

Worse would be giving observers the impression that you are "White-ant"-ing the other instructor.

I'd approach my CFI.

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Bendo: "This program has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down..."

Yeah that is always a tough one. I´ve been on your side of the fence 3 times and on the other (student wanting to ditch me) once. It all depends on the other instructor, some are fine and some take the hump.

My strategy would be to accept the student but talk to the other instructor in an exasperated "Cor, what a moaning minney, don´t suppose you mind loosing him/her, guess I´m lumbered then as they´ll make a fuss if we refuse, tsk! Students Huh!" etc. etc. This saves his face and diffuses a difficult situation by placing the onus of blame on the student. Of course you don´t let the student know this.

That said be wary of the student who has unrealistic expectations of you and your time and ends up wanting to change all the time. If you´ve got the credentials e.g. 500hrs instruction and 100 stisfied customers then you´ve got a leg to stand on when telling them to just buckle down and work harder.

Cheers,

WWW

Refer the student to the CFI - thats what he's paid for .

Tell the student that you don't mind taking him or her on (if that's the case) and will talk to the CFI about it. Make sure the student is aware that you will see the CFI about it. Emphasise the positive re you, the instructor, the CFI & the school are interested in the best welfare for all concerned.

Your organisation should have some form of grievance or conflict resolution procedure.

If possible try to find out more from the student & his or her instructor why there is this problem. Is it a recent thing? Is it a personality clash / instructional style / something else etc? Is one or the other experiencing unusual stress at home or work that has affected his or her behaviour or ability?

It may be possible to resolve the problem without changing instructors by discussing the matter with the CFI, instructor & student. It may be the student's expectations are unrealistic or some other circumstance that is not to do with the instructor etc

Alternativelyr all concerned may feel a change is the best solution.

A mature instructor should understand he or she may not be the best instructor for all students and that this does not necessarily reflect ability. Similarly the CFI should also be cognizent of this.

On a personal note I've been involved in this sort thing as CFI, preferred instructor and non-preferred instructor. I don't think it's wise to denigrate the student OR the instructor. The focus needs to be on the behaviour that is causing the problem.

Best wishes to all concerned.

deleted this post for reasons known only to myself, but Bendo, thanks for your response.

[This message has been edited by azzie (edited 13 May 2000).]

Dont know where you Work, Azzie, but in Australia a flying school is required to have a Standardisation Meeting every 6-12 months for exactly this reason.

At the opposite extreme is the school where I trained, where all the instructors had been trained in-house for 4 or 5 "Generations" and passed on verbatim some of the most horrendous horse **** :rolleyes:

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Bendo: "This program has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down..."

Tinny's hit the nail on the head on this one.

The matter needs to be referred to the boss to sort out. That way the decision will be more impartial, and hopefully have the STUDENT'S interests in mind.

Did you fly with the student prior to the request, Apache? If so, perhaps he/she feels more comfortable with you.

Quite often (particularly in busy flying schools) students are allocated to instructors purely based on what is good for the company, and not necessarily the student.

Unfortunately, one of the downfalls of that is the very situation you now find yourself in.

The key here is that the student's welfare is essential to the success of the company, so you should act in their interest and refer the matter to the boss.



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JARSE! Pull and rotate 90 degrees

No, Jarse, I had not flown with the student prior to being asked, however, being the nice person that I am, I had always been pleasant/polite, said gidday etc. as everybody should do!
When he asked me....the message went to message bank, so I had a chance to inform the other instructor prior to returning the students call. It seems that they had a personality clash...both sides realised it, and I got blessings from both of them.

As a matter of fact, I actively encourage my students to fly with other instructors, so they CAN get a different perspective on things....of course I prewarn the instructor as to what he/she does/doesn't do correctly.
However, I normally only encourage them to fly with others when I am now available, or they are coming up to a check ride. :)

You may well find, in this situation, that your colleague is very glad to get rid of the student in question - for all sorts of reasons....

Usually, the more experienced instructors at a school will tend to end up with a 'remedial group' of 'problem' students.

It's nice to get some of these people through, but having done this myself - at a large school with a significant number of airline-sponsored instructors doing two years each - it can get a little fustrating to be one of the senior staff and to fly with most of the difficult cases.

Sometimes, by the way, you simply have to say 'Sorry, but you're not going to make it'. Hard, but fairer than depleting someone's bank account without telling them it's likely to be in vain.

Thankfully this is pretty rare but if it happens the CFI is the only one who can resolve it impartially, and take on the student themself if necessary.

The trick is to match the student to the most suitable instructor in the first place.

White anting is the quickest way to beome the most unpopular instructor in the school.
Having one instructor bearing a grudge against another is very damaging, can make people take sides etc and can escalate very quickly. The students pick it up very quickly, and will probably leave.

I'm not a QFI although I do other training tasks within flying and engineering. More to the point I've probably flown with at least 20 instructors at various times.

Different students need different teaching methods. Different instructors apply different teaching methods - most instructors have a variety of teaching methods but not necessarily a wide enough variety to match all students.

If the other QFI is dreadful you'd know (and so would the CFI) from the stream of complaints. Presumably this isn't the case, so probably there's just a mismatch.

Tell the student this is probably the case, and talk to him / CFI / other QFI whoever is most appropriate on that basis. Make it clear you'd also send the other instructor a student you're not making progress with if you thought it'd help.

I got binned from the RAF at 19 because the (incredibly experienced and well respected) QFI I was flying with scared the S&*& out of me. I now am a reasonably competent pilot with about 400 hours, thanks to other equally competent (civil) instructors used different teaching styles. Had I understood all of this at 19, I might have spoken to the squadron CFI and still be flying the Queen's aeroplanes. On the other hand, I probably wouldn't be a Chartered Engineer - swings and roundabouts!

G

From the other side, when I was a student PPLer, I was told from the outset by my instructor that if there was ever any problem, and I felt I wanted to change instructor, that I should say. They explained that sometimes it is just a personality clash, which I believe is very true, or sometimes one instructor's style suits a student more than another's.

All of the instructors used to say this to their students at the beginning and at the school where I trained, the occasional student would fly with another instructor. And sometimes they would come back to the original instructor.

The attitude was always very open, and with the "get out clause" of "clashing personalities" no-one needs lose face.

I think the CFI of a school should maybe get instructors to do this.

Lets face it, we've all flown with someone who we don't get on with as well as others, sometimes there is a drastic difference. Sometimes a different instructor can put a different perspective on something.

Also, if a student was having a problem with a particular exercise it was common practice to suggest they have a flight with another instructor.

A flying school is not a place for huge egos.