During a weather interlude during my CPL course I read my student notes.
I asked my instructor what he ment by "needs to do his checks less like Eric Morecambe"
He replied "you do all the right checks, but not necessarily, in the right order!".
Its the only time I've been compared to Andre Previn :ok:

The instructor doesn't get paid for letting the students teach themselves.
The instructor gets paid to teach.

Surely you mean Andre Preview :)

Well that maybe a misunderstanding of the learning process. Never been a flying instructor but I have had to train people. We never really teach. They learn. As a teacher, we are a resource. We guide and inform the student's learning process. We are a source of information and a restraining hand on the mistake.

Bull Spring?
 

It can be amusing, all right. The field enroute to Lasham from Booker that I decided looked landable was lined with trees and shadows. Under the trees the shadows included about 50 black yearling bulls. Entire bulls.

Of course they thought I had landed to bring them lunch. I spent the next half hour running round the glider trying to keep it intact. At last a farmer driving by noticed my difficulty and brought his Landrover round to help move the glider into the next field.

We used to raise polled Hereford bulls on our farm in Devon, years ago.

True, but our job is not to toss 'em in the deep end and see who comes up and floats.
And the difference between teaching people and flight instructing is that the latter teaches you a skill that may kill you or save your life.
Maybe years down the line.
You can't joke around with that.

I've been taught by many instructors over the last 20 odd years covering pretty much most of the types we can think of (military, civilian, career, hour builders etc.)

The best took used the 'rules' as guidance and tailored lessons/checkouts to me and the situation. The worst went strictly by the book.

Never done any (official) instructing myself, but ISTR an apocryphal story about an instructor who, in his report on the stude, wrote: "This young man opens the throttle on take-off - and initiates a series of events over which he exercises no further control !"

D.