The FAA in its inestimable wisdom has created a series of abbreviations and acronyms designed to make us all safer pilots. One that has always struck me as being of great value, aside from its unassailable clunkiness, is the DECIDE model.
There are six parts. Each relates to one letter in the word that represents it.
- Detect
- Estimate
- Choose a course of action
- Identify solutions
- Do the necessary actions
- Evaluate the effects of those actions.
This comes straight from the Pilot‘s Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge. By my estimation one of the best books any student pilot — or any pilot — could include among the list of reading material on their library shelf.
Each component of the DECIDE model has value. It’s all good advice.
To be truly valuable, though, each item requires a bit of additional fleshing out to fully make sense. Still, the seed of good decision-making can be found in those six letters. If not memorized, it is at least worthy of our time in discussing it and considering how we might put the DECIDE model to best use in our day-to-day aeronautical pursuits.
That’s not the issue today, however. There is another version of the decide model that seems to vex many of us. I count myself in that camp, by the way. Or at least I did at one time. Or, if I didn’t, I should have.
I was a sufferer of the affliction of indecision. Perhaps it was more a lack of commitment or a misunderstanding of the process of learning to fly that led me to a long, bumpy road of less than stellar performance.
Either way, the upshot was that I was seeing lots of money flow out of my bank account while at the same time seeing very little progress in my attempts to become a certificated pilot. And to some degree, that lack of progress was my own fault.
I’m not alone in this conundrum. Over the years I’ve met many young men and women who have fallen into the same desert of confusion and misdirected effort. Just yesterday I heard from a young, dedicated flight instructor who is having a problem with his students cancelling lessons at the last minute. This leaves the instructor frustrated and the student headed for a self-induced and undeniably counter-productive learning plateau.
Once, long ago, I was that student. So I think I’ve got the inside track on what the problem is. Better yet, I’ve got a good handle on the solution. Maybe not the only solution, but a workable version you might consider.
Students are ignorant. That’s not to say they’re dumb, although some might be. Ignorance isn’t synonymous with stupidity. It’s simply a lack of knowledge and understanding. Ignorance can be fixed. It could be argued that it should be corrected effectively and in a timely manner.
The key to making that happen is for the knowledgeable entity (the CFI in this case) to take the time and make the effort to understand the ignorant entity (the flight student) thoroughly enough to offer corrective action that will be useful.
In short, recognizing the problem, followed by developing an understanding of the problem, can lead to a solution to the problem.
Let’s face it, learning to fly is a problem-rich environment. Pity the poor student who doesn’t know which way is up and is feeling frustrated, confused, or deflated because they just aren’t making progress the way they do in the movies. From Hollywood’s perspective it certainly seems that any issues that might block our forward trajectory can be understood and resolved in 90 minutes or less. In real life, that’s rarely true.
My solution, which is based on equal parts on my own experience as a struggling student as well as my much longer experience as a flight instructor, actually works. At least, it has worked well for me. Perhaps it will work for you, too — no matter which side of the conundrum you sit on.
It’s worth a try.
Students cancel lessons, show up unprepared, and generally fail to make significant progress toward their goal of learning to fly for one specific reason. They don’t really understand the process of learning a complex subject that includes multiple components of knowledge combined with mechanical skill. Learning to fly isn’t about plunking yourself down in the seat to simply mimic the hand and foot movements the CFI demonstrates. Memorizing all the facts and figures included in our manuals won’t do the trick, either. Both CFIs and their students need to take a more holistic approach.
Once the student and CFI are on the same page, everything gets easier. This level of understanding won’t be found in longer study sessions, however. Nor will be come from loud voices, the implementation of cancellation fees, or threats of dropping the student from the CFI’s schedule.
The solution, and yes it really is this basic, is found in communication.
CFIs and students should be sitting down to chat on a regular basis. Pre-flight briefs and post-flight debriefs are essential to making steady, reliable progress. But beyond that the CFI has to make it clear to the student that effort is required in order to learn the material they’ll need to know and perform in order to become a pilot. Every cancellation sets the student back a step. Every hour logged by a student who was unprepared for the lesson is an hour where dubious levels of learning take place.
The airplane is a lousy classroom. We’ve known that for years. What’s been less talked about is the value of a simple conversation that clarifies what’s next, where the student’s weaknesses are, and how the tag-team partnership of student and CFI can work together to overcome that natural-born ignorance and replace it with real actionable knowledge and skill.
That’s where success is found, in the collaboration between the teacher and the student. It’s not the CFI’s job to pour knowledge directly into the student’s brain. Just as it’s not the student’s job to figure out how they’re doing based on their own observations. It’s a partnership of potential: Teach, learn, adapt.
Unfortunately, TLA is a lousy abbreviation for a decision-making mnemonic — even if the method really does work wonders for the folks sitting in both the left and right seats.
Excellent article Jamie. It should be a “must read” for every pairing of student-instructor.
Good article, well written, thank you. However: the real reason why today’s students fall out the bottom of the program is they’ve been conditioned by video games and iThingies and, most recently, ‘AI,’ that ‘there’s an app for that.’ Why learn anything when you can just touch an icon on the little screen and — voila! — big reward, instant gratification, for little or no input. As clever as they certainly are, the iphone with its apps and social media are the seeds sewn of society’s destruction of scholarship, unfolding before our eyes. Opinion of the Old Curmudgeon, worth what you paid for it.
Regards/J
Thanks for a great article. I agree the “secret sauce” for effective learning requires an honest, caring CFI-Learner relationship. But I would put most of this burden on the CFI since they are – or should be – a knowledgeable professional. The CFI is paid to show up on time, prepared, and make the magic happen. They guide and motivate the learning experience.
Engaging with each student in a personal and compassionate manner (rather than just building hours) is a learned skill often missed during perfunctory CFI courses. This is the magic that goes beyond “just passing the FAA test.” Teaching aviation well is a complicated art.
Every professional CFI must be a “lifetime learner.” This is a vital skill required throughout any successful aviation career. Every new CFI has already learned to be a “pilot,” but needs to engage and become an effective “educator.” These are two very different pieces of “FAA plastic!” A huge benefit of compassion and caring is that each day teaching becomes a personally motivating and unique challenge.
Nice job!
Although I am acronymphobic, the substance contained in one of your paragraphs says it all: “The airplane is a lousy classroom. We’ve known that for years. What’s been less talked about is the value of a simple conversation that clarifies what’s next, where the student’s weaknesses are, and how the tag-team partnership of student and CFI can work together to overcome that natural-born ignorance and replace it with real actionable knowledge and skill.”
If that were central to all flight instructing, progress would be much more guaranteed and less painful.
More acronyms….aaaaaarghh!
;))