You enjoy it or find it comical?
Here is one example, a student we I got who was over 40 hours pre solo. His lessons looked like this, 1-10 the typical basics, 10-40 landing practice. Every folder of every student I have looked at over 100 hours (only about 10 but still so far 100 percent) the student repeated lessons sure. But those repeats occurred on later lessons from landings and beyond, none of their folders reflected a restart and repeat of the original material.
See I had the pleasure when I was growing up of spending about 5 or so years working on about a bi weekly basis with special needs children. They had issues ranging from basic ADD to low functioning autism children I couldn't touch without them flipping out. Everyone can be taught, you just need to find the right methods to teach them IMO.
Sure people with major learning disabilities would be unable to correlate the complexities of the flight environment. But basic flight training can be taught without going beyond the knowledge level of an 8th grader, to put it in perspective that is a 13 year old.
I am not saying the CFI is dumb and just fails miserably, it is the unfortunate end result when a pilot is told to start teaching with the minimal training provided by the FOI. The information in the FOI is wonderful and from the general attitude at my local FBO and on forums that knowledge is basically disregarded.
It is our job as teachers to discover how a student learns, there are 7 commonly agreed upon learning styles which include: Visual, Verbal, Logical, Bodily, Musical, Interpersonal, and Intrapersonal. Now the typical male pilot falls into the category of logical and visual which therefore causes them to adjust their lessons in that manner. These people also typically fall into that of intrapersonal as pilots are always analyzing ourselves and our actions.
Well 50 percent of the population (more commonly the women), approximation, fall into the verbal and interpersonal which causes a problem. This interpersonal person is trying to see things from the CFI's point of view who is likely gearing the information to a logical spacial sense which this person will likely not understand. To make it simple, the difference is a logical versus a creative mind set.
There are further differences when you look at styles of teaching for western versus eastern civilizations. The chinese tend to look at the big picture and describe it first, then break it down, seeing a fish tank they would describe the color of the water, size of the tank and so on. Americans tend to learn in reverse (part of the reason we suck at math and 8th graders in China are doing calculus) and look at the smaller picture, in the above example the American would describe a specific fish in the tank first.
These examples merely brush the surface of what a teacher learns and thinks about when preparing to teach a student. Point is I don't blame the CFIs I blame the system which is probably why major flight colleges are now looking for "career CFIs" and efforts are being made to make teachers into pilots instead of pilots into teachers.
Multiple intelligences/learning styles: http://www.ldpride.net/learningstyles.MI.htm
I can't be to far off, "To this end, U.S. Representative Chris Lee, R-Clarence, NY along with Representative Louis Slaughter, R-Rochester, NY, and Representative Brian Higgins, D-Buffalo, NY have recently introduced an amendment to the FAA Reauthorization Bill directing that the GAO conduct a study of the flight training industry and airline pilot hiring practices."
On a final note, I would take your student back to lesson one and spend ample time in the practice area learning pure basics. Screw the radios and checklists and having them takeoff and land, all these things take brain capacity that could be better used to learn basic flight. Obviously whatever was done the first time didn't work so do it differently, if the student is willing to pay for it then why not it will give you a great learning experience as well.
Research and teach yourself how to teach them, really look at what each lessons goals are and maybe cut those goals in half working to solidify each fundamental step instead of giving up. Have them take a quiz to discover which learning style(s) they fall into and gear the lesson content around that style of learning, you might find the student isn't as dumb as you think.
Sorry for the rant I got a little carried away like usual and hey if you do try harder with them good luck.
