Sunday, October 15, 2006

On Teaching

[migrated from myspace blog]

I never imagined at any point in my life that I would be a teacher. A year and a half ago when I set out on the road to become a flight instructor, I hoped I would be able to find a different exit ramp to flying and time-building before I got to that point. Even though I've only flown with two of them so far, I have five students that I have to take from zero hours to FAA certified private pilots. Now, as I'm sure most would assume to be the case, I know quite about more about flying airplanes than any of my students do. If I didn't then they wouldn't need me to be there. I've passed 5 ground schools, 5 FAA written exams, 8 FAA checkrides consisting of ground and flight portions (my initial instructor ground session being 8 hours long). So clearly the FAA has found me proficient to instruct others in flying.

That being said, after just under 25 total hours of flight instruction given, there are times when I feel a bit like a fraud because I don't have all the answers on the tip of my tongue. I certainly have my strengths when it comes to ground material: systems, aerodynamics. Those come easier to me because they can be understood. Other classes of ground knowledge are just rote memorization: FAA regs, etc. The rote stuff is "use it or lose it." There are things that I'm certain I knew when I took my private pilot checkride that I'm not sure I could answer or rattle off if asked to right now, most likely because of disuse of that information. Granted, 18 months ago I had zero flight hours logged, but I sometimes wonder if people in other professions have the same feelings on occasion. I guarantee my job is easier than being a doctor, but I wonder if a doctor ever feels like there's something they should know better than they do. I sincerely hope more confidence will come in time, but I want to be good at what I do, and be better than / know more than just enough to get by. AOPA's Flight Training magazine has a motto of: A Good Pilot is Always Learning. Maybe that's all it really takes.

No comments: