Ever a good thing to be hard on a student?

[Mattio]

I have a very different view point on instructing than the chief at my school does I think. Maybe it's because I have a bunch of experience teaching at a school that is a business with paying customers and the place I work now is a collegiate program or maybe it's just from remembering which instructors I learned the most from.

He said the other day that he was doing a flight with a student and barking at her for not doing certain things that he had already taught her and she had to ask him to stop.

Is there ever any place for that type of instruction? I know I've felt inclined to bark at a student for doing something really dumb before but I don't think that it accomplishes anything and is actually counter-productive. Thoughts?

 

[The Gardener]

I have a very different view point on instructing than the chief at my school does I think. Maybe it's because I have a bunch of experience teaching at a school that is a business with paying customers and the place I work now is a collegiate program or maybe it's just from remembering which instructors I learned the most from.

He said the other day that he was doing a flight with a student and barking at her for not doing certain things that he had already taught her and she had to ask him to stop.

Is there ever any place for that type of instruction? I know I've felt inclined to bark at a student for doing something really dumb before but I don't think that it accomplishes anything and is actually counter-productive. Thoughts?

Generally I find it very counter productive, but at times it does have its place, however it is quite rare. It is probably more common and necessary at 'career' oriented training environments.

 

[Chucco]

Generally I find it very counter productive, but at times it does have its place, however it is quite rare. It is probably more common and necessary at 'career' oriented training environments.

I'll agree with that. I'm a pretty patient CFI, and I don't get visibly upset in the cockpit (unless they're trying to kill me!). I like to keep a light atmosphere in there. But I've been pretty firm with a student, and it was at a foreign airline training academy. It had to do with the student repeatedly taking the instruction (very wrong instruction, btw) of his classmates over mine.:whip: A little yelling didn't feel right, but it did the trick. It seemed to be something he respected. Maybe because of something in his culture?

 

[jhugz]

I have a very different view point on instructing than the chief at my school does I think. Maybe it's because I have a bunch of experience teaching at a school that is a business with paying customers and the place I work now is a collegiate program or maybe it's just from remembering which instructors I learned the most from.

He said the other day that he was doing a flight with a student and barking at her for not doing certain things that he had already taught her and she had to ask him to stop.

Is there ever any place for that type of instruction? I know I've felt inclined to bark at a student for doing something really dumb before but I don't think that it accomplishes anything and is actually counter-productive. Thoughts?

It depends on the environment. Where I'm at now you have to be, shall I say firm w/ some of these students. Otherwise they treat their time here as vacation.

When I was dealing w/ FAA students I was much more chill. They wanted to be there for a hobby or for a career and for the most part didn't want to waste their money. If the didn't study or do assigned HW I still didn't care because I was being paid an hourly rate.

 

[USMCmech]

But I've been pretty firm with a student, and it was at a foreign airline training academy. It had to do with the student repeatedly taking the instruction (very wrong instruction, btw) of his classmates over mine.:whip: A little yelling didn't feel right, but it did the trick. It seemed to be something he respected. Maybe because of something in his culture?

There is a time and a place for every style of instruction, and this is a good example of when you need to bring out your inner Drill Instructor.

If you follow me around very long you will see me yelling at one of my kids, or even smacking their butt. I don't enjoy it one bit, but they MUST learn that you can not run from daddy in the parking lot.


As long as it's not your normal baseline, it's cool.

 

[tgrayson]

Is there ever any place for that type of instruction? I know I've felt inclined to bark at a student for doing something really dumb before but I don't think that it accomplishes anything and is actually counter-productive.

No, it's a failure of instruction. "Barking" at someone is a result of self-indulgence and lack of self discipline; telling ourselves that it's good for the student is a rationalization intended to make us feel self-righteous in doing something that only benefits ourselves. If you can only influence the student by making them afraid of you, you're doing something wrong.

 

[USMCmech]

If you can only influence the student by making them afraid of you, you're doing something wrong.

I disagree, sometimes the ONLY way to get a student to pay attention is to make them feel a little fear. Loosing your temper and blowing up on a student is another thing entirely. But, ocasionally you need to wake them up with some forcefull language.

That said, 99% of the time if I had to go that route with a student, I'd rather just go ahead and drop them. Since we're suposedly dealing with mature adults, if my student turns out to be a spoiled child (regardless of calender years) I'll just tell them that I don't want to fly with them anymore.

I don't need the agravation or stress, I get enough of that at home

 

[tgrayson]

I disagree, sometimes the ONLY way to get a student to pay attention is to make them feel a little fear.

Perhaps that's the only way YOU can get some students to pay attention. When you find such behavior acceptable, you will find it necessary. If you find it unacceptable, then you will discover other ways to change behavior.

 

[esa17]

There is certainly a time and place for it but it has it's limits. Instructor induced stress is no different than the use of real world distractions.

That said I have never raised my voice at a student but I have made them sweat on a regular basis.

 

[imatworkallday]

I think the only time I yelled at a student was in joy. He FINALLY started sticking his landings! :rawk:

A little yelling can be productive, a lot is VERY counterproductive. Like USMCmech said you occasionally have to do it. Just don't enjoy doing it or make it a habit.

 

[TheresaPilot]

I can say I had never yelled at a student. I've simply told them that if the material hasn't been studied and understood, we will begin quizzing prior to flight. If the mini-quizzes don't prove they are studying and understanding the material (along with an in-flight quiz to confirm knowledge & not rote memorization), flight cancelled, study session begins. My time with the student is not to be taken lightly. I used to work at both a university and FBO... FBO students took my "threat" much heavier than university students.

I guess being a female, having one of my male instructors yell at me would've felt very degrading. And I feel as if I'm a very confident woman--but there's something about when a man yells at you that makes you cower in fear... And not in a good, giving into authority, way. If you want to establish a stronger authority, I don't think that yelling is ever necessary. But that's just my .02

 

[USMCmech]

That said I have never raised my voice at a student but I have made them sweat on a regular basis.

Neither have I.

Like I said, if I was ever to that point, I'd just drop him and fly with somebody else who values my time and expertise. I've got 3 kids, and I don't need another one in a 30 year old body.

There is HUGE difference between shouting to drive your point home, "don't ever, EVER do that again!", vs losing your temper and tearing down a student, "I can't believe some as stupid as you wants to be a pilot".

 

[ProudPilot]

I was hard on a student in the recent past.

I had a student where I signed him off for a solo-xc. We had an agreement that he was to stay xx miles away from any thunderstorms. Well, he flew right though the middle of a orange cell with tops above FL450 on his way back.

...I was not pleased...

 

[esa17]

Neither have I.

Like I said, if I was ever to that point, I'd just drop him and fly with somebody else who values my time and expertise. I've got 3 kids, and I don't need another one in a 30 year old body.

There is HUGE difference between shouting to drive your point home, "don't ever, EVER do that again!", vs losing your temper and tearing down a student, "I can't believe some as stupid as you wants to be a pilot".

Exactly. I hope you don't think I was calling you out, I wasn't.

 

[The Gardener]

I've only gotten really angry with one student. I pulled him aside and let him have it pretty good. He was a commercial applicant and put me in a very very bad situation. Looking back I wish it didn't happen the way it did. I apologized, he also apologized for trying to get me dead and we moved on. He is now a good friend and very loyal student.

With one other student I got a bit excited in the cockpit during an approach to landing and raised my voice a bit. She looked at me and said "that's it! yell at me like my father did! then I'll get it!"

We landed, and I told her, "This isn't working out for us, we need to find you another instructor." We did, and it worked wonderfully.

 

[ryan1234]

I don't really see the point in yelling at someone in the air... it creates an even more stressful situation for the student to handle. Yelling in the air just makes the instructor look like he/she isn't in control of the situation. There is a difference between speaking firmly (after multiple mess-ups) and yelling. The important thing is to stress an action, without stressing the student out.

If it gets out of hand where they're putting you in a really unsafe situation - it may be time to just end the lesson and take the controls. If they're fighting you - well that's a different story completely.

When it's time to debrief the lesson, you can tell them - while they're actually focused on you - what it was they did wrong...whatever the case may be.

 

[shdw]

No, it's a failure of instruction.

So when Danny, you're new top gun student rolls you inverted and pushes hard forward, you calmly recover the airplane with a tempered scolding?

 

[Lead]

I have a very different view point on instructing than the chief at my school does I think. Maybe it's because I have a bunch of experience teaching at a school that is a business with paying customers and the place I work now is a collegiate program or maybe it's just from remembering which instructors I learned the most from.

He said the other day that he was doing a flight with a student and barking at her for not doing certain things that he had already taught her and she had to ask him to stop.

Is there ever any place for that type of instruction? I know I've felt inclined to bark at a student for doing something really dumb before but I don't think that it accomplishes anything and is actually counter-productive. Thoughts?

Absolutely, its good and important to be rough/yell at a student SOMETIMES. I use this general rule: "get mad, yell, bark, whatever you want to call it when the student does something that will possibly kill him AND it is something that can have an instinctual reaction associated with it." Obviously, there are different items for different courses.

Primary students: should almost never be yelled at (unless that's the way the student learns best, not likely.) This is because they probably won't understand what your mad about and it will just make you unapproachable and damage the instructor student relationship.

However, I get mad and yell about low airspeed on final or low airspeed on takeoff. They can understand that cause you've done stalls and the yelling is a much better negative reinforcement than stalling and crashing. Also, it can have an instinctual reaction Low airspeed = pitch down and/or add power.

Instrument students:
- I see a lot of cruise climbing rather than climbing out Vy, low to the ground. That ticks me off. I yell. When they're on their own close to the ground in IMC, and they look down and see a higher than Vy airspeed on climbout, I want them to say "OH this could kill me" and fix it quick.
- Busting minimums... duh
- 20 degree pitch down to catch the glideslope 250 feet off the ground. Yes I had a guy do that to me, full panel.

OBVIOUSLY, after you give them the negative reinforcement, make sure they understand WHY your so pissed. The reason is that you don't want them to kill themselves but also explain the specific danger of what they are doing. Then when they do it correctly give positive reinforcement.

That's my philosophy:bandit: [edit] after reading some of the other posts I thought I should clarify that when I yell it is only related to the problem not directed personally at the student. for example, Low airspeed on final situation: "airspeed, AIRspeed, AIRSPEED!" (push the nose down.) "WHAT ARE YOU DOING!? GET YOUR AIRSPEED UNDER CONTROL! CONTROL YOUR PLANE! THAT WILL KILL YOU!" "My airplane for climbout" At this point I return to a normal pitch level and classroom type of instructor voice. "do you understand why I got upset? You remember those stalls we practiced? When we get low airspeed on final that can happen here... etc. etc.

But the more instructing I do, especially when you have a bunch of guys at the same place in a course and they all make the same mistakes 50 million times apiece, in one day, the harder it is to not get livid. I guess not yelling at that point is called professionalism, but it's tough.

 

[SteamyNicks]

always better to be truthful to student, but patience as a cfi goes a long way
sometimes you have to say its time to get stuff in order

 

[jrh]

[edit] after reading some of the other posts I thought I should clarify that when I yell it is only related to the problem not directed personally at the student. for example, Low airspeed on final situation: "airspeed, AIRspeed, AIRSPEED!" (push the nose down.) "WHAT ARE YOU DOING!? GET YOUR AIRSPEED UNDER CONTROL! CONTROL YOUR PLANE! THAT WILL KILL YOU!" "My airplane for climbout" At this point I return to a normal pitch level and classroom type of instructor voice. "do you understand why I got upset? You remember those stalls we practiced? When we get low airspeed on final that can happen here... etc. etc.

I've never used or thought highly of this technique. I'd classify it as marginally acceptable, but rarely (if ever) optimal.

Maybe it's because most instructors apply it so poorly. Most of the time, it's overreacting. For instance, in the example above, the statements imply losing control of the plane and dying. I've been teaching for a long time and I've never seen anyone come even close to doing this. A pilot won't die from flying final 10 or 20 knots too slow. It'll probably result in a hard landing, but not death. I'd challenge anyone to show me a report that finds this as the cause of an accident.

However, I have seen a lot of pilots get overly focused on some relatively unimportant area of flight, all because they had an instructor yell at them about it. The pilot gets so focused on something like airspeed on final that they forget about looking for traffic, talking on the radio, or using good crosswind technique.

I'm very much with tgrayson on this issue. Yelling isn't a good idea. Simple as that.

Something else to consider: Can you picture John King or Rod Machado yelling at somebody? Yelling is a technique widely used by mediocre instructors, yet virtually never used by the really outstanding career instructors.

It's also never listed in the Aviation Instructor's Handbook as a way of teaching effectively. You'd think if it were a proven method, the FAA would encourage it.