OT? Dumbing down of society

wrote in message news:e72e9a17-5962-4973-85d5-


Many pilots (way too many) commit facts to memory to get past
the flight and written exams. It's rote learning, without the
understanding necessary to be safe. Exams tend to encourage that sort
of thing.


Ironically, the FAA exams (including the Fundamentals of Instruction, which
preaches the pitfalls of rote memorization) are exercises in rote learning
because ASA, Gleim, etc publish the questions and answers to the written
exams.

I used them and scored 90s on the written exams, but I still feel like I
short-changed my own aviation education, so I've taken to re-reading the
Jeppeson instrument/commercial manual to reinforce my understanding of the
concepts.



-c

On Mon, 18 Feb 2008 16:36:43 -0600, "Neil Gould"
wrote:

In the case of the Gleim materials, the wrong "answers" are also
published, and learning can be enhanced by understanding why they are
wrong. I found it to be very informative for the conceptual areas, though
less so for the regs.

King does the same in their courses. I've also found that wrong
answers can often clarify my understanding.

On Fri, 15 Feb 2008 20:33:23 -0700, "Private"
wrote:

There has been a lot of discussion here lately regarding the dumbing down of
society in regards to stalls and flight training and piloting in general,
this author shares many of the same feelings.

Might want to rent a movie called "Idiocracy"




Virginia - the only State with a flag rated
"R" for partial nudity and graphic violence.

Recently, gatt posted:

wrote in message
news:e72e9a17-5962-4973-85d5-


Many pilots (way too many) commit facts to memory to get past
the flight and written exams. It's rote learning, without the
understanding necessary to be safe. Exams tend to encourage that sort
of thing.


Ironically, the FAA exams (including the Fundamentals of Instruction,
which preaches the pitfalls of rote memorization) are exercises in
rote learning because ASA, Gleim, etc publish the questions and
answers to the written exams.

In the case of the Gleim materials, the wrong "answers" are also
published, and learning can be enhanced by understanding why they are
wrong. I found it to be very informative for the conceptual areas, though
less so for the regs.

I used them and scored 90s on the written exams, but I still feel
like I short-changed my own aviation education, so I've taken to
re-reading the Jeppeson instrument/commercial manual to reinforce my
understanding of the concepts.

One can also take ground schools, where there is a chance to discuss the
concepts in depth with instructors and students. I found them to be more
helpful than just reading the text, particularly for the instrument ground
school course.

Neil

On 2008-02-17, wrote:
Many pilots (way too many) commit facts to memory to get past
the flight and written exams. It's rote learning, without the
understanding necessary to be safe. Exams tend to encourage that sort
of thing.

There should be more emphasis on the oral (in which the examiner can ask
any pertinent question to the rating sought) and less on writtens. Over
here, there is no oral but a whole battery of written tests. The US
system of a relatively trivial written, but also an oral test is better;
an examiner can tell far better if the student really understands the
material much better than automatically graded multiple choice.

--
From the sunny Isle of Man.
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