I didn't read most this thread, so excuse me if I am repeating something here.
I look at this crap like this; you can't take a course in college without having the pre-req's done. If you have not taken Econ 101, how in the hell do you expect to even have a chance at passing Econ 201? It's not that they even cover the same material. Heck, the differences between Political Science 200 at my university, National Government, is a pre-req. for almost everything in the department. Do you need to know that we have a two house legislature? How about what term limits on house members are? Maybe the minimum age to be president. Nope, you don't need to know any of that stuff to learn about Latin American Politics, which is like Political Science 420 or something like that.
But you don't have a chance in hell of getting through 420 before you pass 200 because there is a bunch of adjunct information that you get in going through a progression of courses that you NEED to know so that you can pass the upper level courses. In the lower level classes you're learing a lot less about real specific stuff. Instead you're learning very broad concepts and how to study for the material the you're learning. You're given a less intense work load and you've given a chance to catch your breath for when you hit the upper division courses. Because when you walk into PSCI 420 there ain't no screwing around (which I found out the hard way) and you're expected to know a lot of crap that they're not going to be teaching you.
The progression that we take in this career path is the same way. Does teaching people how to land a Cessna 172 apply to flying an RJ? Not really. But it DOES allow you to learn about what you think you already know. And what the heck do I mean by that?
When I started instructing I thought I knew a few things, but after I had to teach it to a person or two I realized that I was a pretty bright chap that could spew out a bunch of crap on a checkride and get by with the examiner smiling. You REALLY figure this crap out when you have to teach it to somebody and explain in a way that makes them understand it half way decently. What that means is you have to REALLY know what you're talking about and be able to explain it 8 different ways.
So what does that have to do with flying an RJ? It teaches you how to study aviation and everything about it. Without instructing or doing some other low level job all you have is book knowledge from taking checkrides. That's great, and you've GOTTA have that or you won't go anywhere. But until you figure out how to apply all that great stuff, you'll have NO chance at doing it at 500 knots and you're going to have to have your captain save your butt. That's not his job, he already instructed and is now making an attempt to lead a crew. When you slack off because of ignorance then it degrades the safety.
So when you skip aviation 101 and try to go right to the graduate level courses you don't even have a chance of trying to pick up the information you're trying to learn. Can you pass the checkride? Maybe, but that doesn't mean much in my view. Checkrides are black and white and the world we're flying out there is not, and you've gotta make a lot of decisions while you're out there and if you are out there doing this stuff and you don't see the complexity that I'm talking about you need to get the heck away from me because you're just tooling around and an accident waiting to happen.
Clear as mud?
