Respect is a two-way street

I have two examples as to why we need to reinforce respect. In the first instance, a high school student said his 60-something CFI routinely makes comments about “millennials.”

To wit: “Do they teach you anything in school?” the CFI asked when the student said he’s allowed to use a calculator in math class. Guess what? Calculators have been permitted in high school math classes for a couple of decades now. OK, we’ll call that one a failure of the generation gap.

Here’s a remark that’s more troubling. The same student asked about an online study program for the private pilot certificate. The CFI pointed out that the student had access to study tools on the flight school computer. But the student was looking for something he could access remotely, to spare him a 20-mile drive to the flight school. The CFI’s response: “Oh, I see. You’re like all the other millennials; you don’t want to work for anything.”

These comments, coupled with the CFI’s tendency to announce, “I don’t know why you’re not getting this,” had the student questioning not only whether he wants to stay with this instructor, but with this flight school. And who could blame him?

Let’s reverse the situation. Suppose you called an electrician, or a plumber, or some other type of professional to perform a service for you. Would you like it if the professional took your money and then called you stupid? Or lazy? Or even just sighed and said, “I don’t know why you can’t do this yourself”? Because that’s what this flight instructor did. He got paid for insulting his student. And the result is that he’s going to lose a student, and the flight school might lose a customer.

Here’s a second instance. An instrument student took her checkride with the local designated pilot examiner, and she passed. She later told her CFII that the oral portion of the practical test lasted two hours.

“Mine was 5.5 hours,” said the CFII. “He must go easy on women.”

Record scratch.

That was his assumption? It didn’t occur to him that his own student was well-prepared and knowledgeable? It didn’t occur to him that perhaps he hadn’t been so well-prepared when he completed the oral portion of the instrument checkride, and so his examiner had felt the need to dig a little deeper? No, his assumption was that women get favorable treatment. This CFI messed up. His client now knows how he really feels—and do you think she’ll fly another hour with him?

In 2019, let’s resolve to tell our flight instructors to respect their clients—all of their clients.