Learners

[EricJ]

Languages are never static.   This isn't a very productive thing to spend energy on, although for the grumpy I can understand the temptation.

CHANGE IS BAD!   GET OFF MY LAWN!

Past a certain age you just get those tattooed on your face and be done.

[HIghpockets]

Not all students are learners.

[Utah20Gflyer]

Much of what is going on in our society reminds me of the novel 1984.  Specifically the reduction of the number of words deemed acceptable along with the redefinition of many words to mean the exact opposite of what they meant originally.  Considering how depressing I found the book I don't like our trajectory.  

[Schllc]

3 hours ago, Vance Harral said:

OK, but we've been headed down that rabbit hole for the entire history of language.  I find the implied argument unpersuasive, that any particular set of languages changes are going to result in meaningful societal changes, either positive or negative.  It's not different this time: today's "woke" is yesterday's "diverse", which was a further yesterday's "politically correct", and still a further yesterday's "genteel".  One might as well gripe about Americanisms and Aussie slang that bastardize and demean perfectly good British terminology.  Mostly you'll find that people's definition of reasonable language coincides with whatever was in vogue around their 18th birthday.

 

The point as I took it, is that words have meanings, and those meanings are at the base of our culture, our mores, and are how we relate to each other.  
Arbitrarily changing the definition of a word to appease some segment of a population injures exponentially more than it helps in most examples. 
I’m not going to detail any examples here, because I’m not trying to make it political, but if anyone has been a wake, and mildly observant over the past 30 years, you can think of quite a few without trying….  
The genesis behind most of these “changes” seems to imply that judgment of any kind is insensitive and mean.

you cannot have a civil society without it, and traditions aren’t always “just because that’s how we used to do it”, sometimes it’s just what worked best…

[donkaye]

I asked Gleim to unlock their FIRC to me so I could go in and uniformly change all "learner" references back to "students".  They refused.  Every time I see the word "learner" it makes me angry.  It takes away from the "learning" process.

[N201MKTurbo]

As soon as “maintainers” is universally accepted as someone who fixes airplanes, they will need to change it. I’m voting for “correctors” to correct airworthiness deficiencies.  

[ilovecornfields]

This thread is so refreshing! I was starting to worry about WWIII and global economic collapse so it’s nice to have something truly important to spend my time worrying about.

The fact is the FAA didn’t invent the term “learner” and it’s the term that basically everyone in education is using. Yes, I still call medical students “students.” interns “interns” and residents “residents.”  Frankly, I don’t think anyone really cares if I call them students or learners, but it’s amusing for people to get so worked up over such a trivial change.

Please, write to your congressional representative and let them know that this abuse of power wilL not stand! Or just find something else to waste your time on.

[gacoon]

7 minutes ago, donkaye said:

I asked Gleim to unlock their FIRC to me so I could go in and uniformly change all "learner" references back to "students".  They refused.  Every time I see the word "learner" it makes me angry.  It takes away from the "learning" process.

I used King earlier this month and there was none of this nonsense in their CFI  renewal course.  

[201er]

Let’s rename passengers, transportees while we’re at it. 

[ilovecornfields]

1 minute ago, 201er said:

Let’s rename passengers, transportees while we’re at it. 

Mine seem to refer to themselves as “victims” but that works too.

[AIREMATT]

2 minutes ago, ilovecornfields said:

Mine seem to refer to themselves as “victims” but that works too.

Must be willing “victims” or you’d get hauled in for kidnapping them

[donkaye]

52 minutes ago, ilovecornfields said:

This thread is so refreshing! I was starting to worry about WWIII and global economic collapse so it’s nice to have something truly important to spend my time worrying about.

The fact is the FAA didn’t invent the term “learner” and it’s the term that basically everyone in education is using. Yes, I still call medical students “students.” interns “interns” and residents “residents.”  Frankly, I don’t think anyone really cares if I call them students or learners, but it’s amusing for people to get so worked up over such a trivial change.

Please, write to your congressional representative and let them know that this abuse of power wilL not stand! Or just find something else to waste your time on.

Obviously, my anger at such a trivial word change runs deeper than the word itself.

[Will.iam]

1 hour ago, 201er said:

Let’s rename passengers, transportees while we’re at it. 

Or self loading and unloading cargo. They really love that term. 

[RLCarter]

A few years ago I was at a buddies house, hanging out in the Man Cave, his son came out to get a little help on his over the weekend math homework…. I kinda like math so I was following their conversation and quickly asked “ WTF “ are you’ll doing?.. Why in the world did they change simple arithmetics? It was the stupidest thing I have ever seen

[Will.iam]

This is what happens when society has nothing traumatic happening to them. When 911 happened for a few months at least most if not all new york residents banded together to help out in the crisis instead of gripping about each other. Last time i heard there were 19 different genders but when covid hit not a single covid case or death to the other 17 genders that was not male or female. The Ukraines are not worried nor discussing changing any of their words as they are too busy fighting Russia. I guess that’s my point when there is a real problem or threat, the petty bickering BS stops. 

[ilovecornfields]

17 minutes ago, RLCarter said:

A few years ago I was at a buddies house, hanging out in the Man Cave, his son came out to get a little help on his over the weekend math homework…. I kinda like math so I was following their conversation and quickly asked “ WTF “ are you’ll doing?.. Why in the world did they change simple arithmetics? It was the stupidest thing I have ever seen

I had a very similar experience when I tried to help my son with his math homework recently and he asked me to stop because I was “doing it all wrong.” Now I’m certainly less mathematically gifted than some, but I did do my share of multivariable calculus, linear algebra and differential equations in college so I foolishly thought I was qualified to help out with middle school math. I guess I was wrong. His teacher tried educating me about “common core” and I ended up just giving up and hiring a tutor. I used my free time not helping him with his homework to build him a Minecraft server so it’s win-win.

@donkaye, I get why you’re upset, but the fact is the world changes and you getting all worked up about the little stuff doesn’t get you far and probably isn’t good for your health, either. Despite our occasional disagreements (I’m still climbing out at Vy no matter what you say) I respect you as a person and the vast amount of wisdom you’ve shared with me and everyone else here. I don’t always like the way the world changes either but I have to pick my battles and, for me, this is pretty far down on the list. I was actually just thinking about you today as I filled up in Los Banos. Gustine was a few cents cheaper but the runway is shorter and it didn’t seem worth it to me to save a few dollars. I appreciated having flown there with you at night though and knowing I could have made it in there if I had to. You’re a good teacher. Your students are lucky to have you, regardless of what you call them.

 

[MooneyMitch]

3 hours ago, Eight8Victor said:

I propose we start using the term “fixers” in place of mechanics. 

 

 

Yeah, but fixers is not always true !! 

[Hank]

4 hours ago, MooneyMitch said:

Yeah, but fixers is not always true !! 

Sure it is! But with Old equipment of any type, fixing one issue often causes others.

But be careful with your terminology. Down here, "fixing to" means "something that I'm gonna get around to soon." 

[HIghpockets]

"Some people have a way with words, and other people...oh, uh, not have way.” 
― Steve Martin

[cbarry]

As a somewhat experienced aviator, I take offense at use of the word learner for the beginner.  As an initial student pilot, we (including me) are morons as it pertains to aviation.  You advance from a moron  to become a student when you open ears enough to hear your instructor say “stop riding the damn brakes” and actually stop doing it!  From thence forward, you start learning until you hopefully arrive someday at wisdom—the condition of knowing what you don’t know.  Clear and direct communication helps save lives, time and money!

[201er]

15 hours ago, donkaye said:

I'm sure many would say that I'm making a mountain out of a molehill, but I am thoroughly disgusted with meaningless political correctness that is now infiltrating into flying and flight instruction in particular.  It just seems to phony to me.  Apparently the FAA has "cancelled" the word "student" in favor of "learner".

Well Part 61 still calls it a Student Pilot and a Student. Is it possible that they added the word learner to differentiate a rank prior to student. Student Pilot is an actual term from the regs meaning someone who received a Student Pilot Certificate and with an instructor sign off is allowed to fly solo. 
 

Maybe a “learner” is the bottom of the barrel of incapability, beneath Student Pilot. A man, or a woman or anything else he wants to call himself, that has not applied for a medical/Student Pilot Certificate but engages in the act of learning to fly an airplane. The learner has yet to become a Student Pilot.

FAA seems pretty clear about what a Student Pilot is:

https://www.faa.gov/pilots/become/student_cert/

[Fly Boomer]

9 hours ago, EricJ said:

GET OFF MY LAWN!

Made me laugh.  Thanks.

[A64Pilot]

My Wife has been teaching middle school for a couple of decades, she has this year gone back to work after a few years off. 

According to her they don’t teach so much anymore as there are meetings nearly every day and the overriding concern is over political correctness, how does a kid identify etc. The push is if a kid is failing, it’s not their fault and of course if a kid does anything wrong they are talked to, no punishment of any kind. By that I mean if for example a kid spit their gum into a teachers face as happened yesterday, they are talked to, no repercussions. No kid is allowed to fail, don’t show up to school, fail all the tests or refuse to take tests it doesn’t matter your “socially promoted” is the term.

20 years ago or more no kind would ever consider spitting gum into a teachers face, now they do and laugh about it looking around to see if others approve.

History has been rewritten to be more politically correct and there are major arguments about teaching certain subjects that one wonders why such a thing is even being considered as a school subject, what happened to the three R’s?

Middle school is way more violent now and things go on that didn’t used to, when I went to school public sex on the school grounds so that others could watch wasn’t done, at any level of school and now it’s not all that uncommon in Middle School.

You guys can just think we old men are just growing old and that’s all it is, but society is changing and sure some of it can be explained from the population being so much larger, but the trend is disturbing. As a Society we are more educated than ever before, but one wonders what the average person knows upon getting these degrees? Or is it more of a case that you get the loans, pay your money and the degree is awarded as opposed to earned?  

Edited March 24, 2022 by A64Pilot

[GeeBee]

It is all part of what I call "Pee on the bush". Just like male dogs have to leave their mark so do people. Every time we got a new VP of Flight Ops, wholesale changes to the Flight Ops manual and other things. So with these changes just think of your dog with his leg hiked, urinating over the previous dog's urine and you have the picture. Remember, it's all urine.

 

 

[ilovecornfields]

55 minutes ago, A64Pilot said:

You guys can just think we old men are just growing old and that’s all it is, but society is changing and sure some of it can be explained from the population being so much larger, but the trend is disturbing.

As a Middle Aged White Man I completely agree, but I’m not sure calling students “learners” is really the problem. The world is a different place now. Remember when “research” involved going to a library and reading primary sources instead of looking at Instagram memes while expelling solid waste from your GI tract?
 

Of all the changes the FAA has made which could be viewed as being for political correctness (like changing the AIM and NOTAM) this “learner” thing just doesn’t make it to the top of my list. It’s the term everyone is education is either using or will be using. To me, this seems like an example of displacement where people are upset at the world around them but since they can’t really change that they pick something else to displace their anxiety. 
 

https://www.simplypsychology.org/defense-mechanisms.html

Commercial pilot only, not a psychiatrist…