I've been advocating for NOtice To Aircrew Members, to no avail.
Students are "Learners" now...........
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Reminds me of the persistent use of "individual" to refer to a person. I always want to ask "individual WHAT? Individual dog, individual chimpanzee, individual fish, WHAT?"
Katamarino
Pattern Altitude
I'm actually curious about this myself. I have adapted to the change but I have zero clue what prompted it, nor understand how it is better. I assume I'm not part of the aggrieved class this aims to relieve.
Ryan will be able to tell us I'm sure, as he has assured us it's "definitely" ideological.
Just curious: Are you aware of any plans to remove the 29 references to "student" from the AIM? (Note: This is NOT a suggestion!)
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Bob Noel
instead of wasting time changing "student" to "learner", I'd love to see people stop torturing the English language... stop using "could care less" when you mean "couldn't care less", stop using "methodology" when you mean "method" (wouldn't "methodology" be the study of methods?)... etc etc etc.
The phrase "Flying Purple People Leader" keeps ringing in my head.....
Someone on POA suggested "Notice To Aircrew Members" for NOTAM, which would have been far better than the FAA's garble.
Daleandee
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Dale Andee
Well ... there are 19 on this page:
Shouldn't that be LPC by now?
Tarheelpilot
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Tarheelpilot
I’ll expand on my nope.
Student pilot just happens to be a certification. I however consider myself to be a permanent student pilot. I’ve never and don’t think I will ever move past the student status. No matter how much I study or experience I’m always a student of the craft and art of being an aviator.
I don’t want anyone to take that away from me. Student is not derogatory or inappropriate in describing what I am. I am a 9000 hour student pilot with an ATP certification.
If you want to be called a learner that’s fine.
Personally I don’t need or want that validation. Being a permanent student has served me well.
To each their own. Our opinions are equally valid. Just please don’t call me a learner.
But it must be a hoot in the TRACON when a 777 pilot finishes reading back a clearance with the phrase "Student pilot."
Tarheelpilot
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Tarheelpilot
Man. I’ll never make it to a triple. I’m too old and junior to see that gig. I’m forever domestic narrow body student pilot trash. It’s ok though. I take pride in actually working for my money. Those international guys just ride around taking turn sleeping. /s
But it must be a hoot in the TRACON when a 777 pilot finishes reading back a clearance with the phrase "Student pilot."
I find that terminology offensive. They should use something more considerate... like 'airmanship impaired'.
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Bro do you even lift
oh no, we can't do that because within the word notam are the letters 'm', 'a', and 'n', and we all know what that spells. that's not inclusive and is very offensive to some people and is one of the main reasons why there is such under-representation of blah blah blah gack puke hurl......
Van Johnston
Pattern Altitude
Somebody could submit a FOIA request to ask for all documentation related to how the FAA decided to make that change.
More broady speaking, it is consistent with a trend of turning nouns into verbs and verbs to nouns. Example: It's a big ask for us old-timers to adjust to calling people who learn learners, even though we call people who teach teachers.
In that spirit, I plan to go airplaneing this weekend.
More broady speaking, it is consistent with a trend of turning nouns into verbs and verbs to nouns. Example: It's a big ask for us old-timers to adjust to calling people who learn learners, even though we call people who teach teachers.
In that spirit, I plan to go airplaneing this weekend.
Thanks to the CAF, I have become what I consider to be a student of WW 2 history, but I never studied it in school. One of the definitions of "student" is "one who studies."
AKiss20
Line Up and Wait
This doesn’t seem that complicated. My read of Brad Z’s post is that it is to distinguish those who are being taught, or learning, from those specifically who only hold a student pilot certificate. E.g. a PPL in instrument instruction is a student in that they are learning and not certificated in the topic they are learning about (instrument flying) but they hold more than a student pilot certificate. Referring to them simply as a “student pilot” is ambiguous as to which status they are. It seems this is simply disambiguation.
kgruber
Final Approach
I cringe every time I hear......."frankly".........there is NEVER anything "frank" about the next words.
I feel like it was more of a slower evolution and not so much a forced feeding....
RussR
En-Route
That's funny, I literally said exactly the same thing to a couple pilots last week when we were joking about this.
AKiss20
Line Up and Wait
Uh…civil rights movement? The Civil war? I’m pretty sure those on the wrong side of history in those examples would say they were “force fed” that era’s equivalent of “woke”.
I’m sure in the 1950s and 1960s there were plenty of people complaining about certain words that became unacceptable to use…
Been a CFI over 20 years, I am not using the term learner. I actually feel bad for the ones that do use the term. Just as I will still call it a BFR. It amuses me even more when someone uses the term BFR and some FAA fanboy chimes in and tries to correct them that is is no longer called BFR.
And as far as I know, Congress has not empowered the FAA to act as the arbiter of correct use of the English language.
RyanShort1
Final Approach
This is going to require a deeper dive than I want to do in a post this evening, and honestly there isn't a lot that you can find with even 20-30 minutes of searching on Google.
I don't know a single CFI personally who is privy to the backstory of what prompted the need to change from student to learner. It "looks" like it came from an industry working group - but it's not exactly clear who was on that board, or where the push actually came from.
Personally, "student" to me implies plenty of things, including self-study. The best scientists and engineers "study" their craft, subject, or whatever with or without an "instructor." You can also study "under" someone.
"Learner" to me implies a bit of projection that you "hope" a client will learn well. For that matter, the older dictionaries I have don't even have it listed as a word. The earliest references I can find to "learners" are typically in phrases like "My student Jack was a slow-learner." To call a client a student, is honestly more dignifying in my mind, than "learner." Yes, "student" may also be a bit of a projection, but it's also a word with a lot more common usage history that fits what is happening in an instructor-client relationship.
What's behind the FAA's switch from 'student' to 'learner'?
When the FAA announced that the 2020 update of the Aviation Instructor's Handbook would drop the terms "student" and "cockpit" in favor of "learner" and "flight deck," many aviators wondered what was behind the move.
www.aopa.org
I don't know a single CFI personally who is privy to the backstory of what prompted the need to change from student to learner. It "looks" like it came from an industry working group - but it's not exactly clear who was on that board, or where the push actually came from.
Personally, "student" to me implies plenty of things, including self-study. The best scientists and engineers "study" their craft, subject, or whatever with or without an "instructor." You can also study "under" someone.
"Learner" to me implies a bit of projection that you "hope" a client will learn well. For that matter, the older dictionaries I have don't even have it listed as a word. The earliest references I can find to "learners" are typically in phrases like "My student Jack was a slow-learner." To call a client a student, is honestly more dignifying in my mind, than "learner." Yes, "student" may also be a bit of a projection, but it's also a word with a lot more common usage history that fits what is happening in an instructor-client relationship.
RyanShort1
Final Approach
Take this article for an example:
kathleenmcclaskey.com
It seems to me that these people have completely redefined the word "study" as well as the word "student" and then decided that because they redefined what it means to be a student, they can no longer tolerate it's use in various settings. The author's choice to cite Wikipedia as a source of authority on the subject of being a student is just unprofessional, in my opinion.
Of course, I'm currently "studying" the topic, with the intent to "learn" whatever I can from my study and I don't have anyone "instructing" me or some master that I'm paying in order to study.
The whole thing is just weird.
Learner vs. Student: Who Do you Want in Your Classroom?
It is the start of the school year and you have been preparing to have your assigned children enter your classroom. You have so many questions about them but one you may have not thought about is: …
kathleenmcclaskey.com
It seems to me that these people have completely redefined the word "study" as well as the word "student" and then decided that because they redefined what it means to be a student, they can no longer tolerate it's use in various settings. The author's choice to cite Wikipedia as a source of authority on the subject of being a student is just unprofessional, in my opinion.
Of course, I'm currently "studying" the topic, with the intent to "learn" whatever I can from my study and I don't have anyone "instructing" me or some master that I'm paying in order to study.
The whole thing is just weird.
AV8R_87
Line Up and Wait
I know a few people who still use the word "broad" to refer to a woman. I'm sure they're offended that the rest of us find the term less appropriate than they do.
I have never seen a sign that said "Study to fly here". For as long as I've been in aviation, it has been "Learn to fly here". The justification in the AOPA article is complete nonsense, but for me "student" always had a bit more of an academical connotation. Used to be that you would not even be called a student (usually) until you got to college, although that seems to have changed lately.
You might be studying for the instrument written test, but you're still learning how to fly using instruments. At the end of the day, it's only weird because it's a sudden language change. Had it been more of a gradual transition, none of us would probably notice.
RyanShort1
Final Approach
Maybe. But I'm not convinced.
Learner has almost always been used as a second word in a phrase as "Slow-learner," "visual-learner," "fast-learner," "quick learner." I don't think you'll even find it in practically ANY dictionary that's more than 10-20 years old, either.
I don't hate the word learner, but to me the real issue is the re-definition of the word "student," and that's the fish that smells rotten. There's literally hundreds of years of definitions of the word student, with some gradual change, but it's really not that different now than it was 200, 300 years ago, and immense bodies of work that have all used the word. Re-defining it now, IMO, is purposeful and it changes the way future generations will perceive that body of work to some degree. Why is that positive?
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Morgan3820
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All pilots are studs, by definition
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just passing through
Just as soon as you can define "pornography". It is only fair, as that question has been around a lot longer than yours has been.
Unless, of course, you want to say that "Since it doesn't have a concise agreed upon definition it must not exist". But I'm betting you don't really want to go down that path as that would really mess up some of the "woke" stuff going on at the present.
RyanShort1
Final Approach
I have no problem saying “flight review” vs BFR. It uses the words that remind you that review is required rather than a slightly awkward acronym. It also isn’t really re-defining anything.
AV8R_87
Line Up and Wait
I will agree with you that learner, especially standalone, sounds forced/convoluted.
It's interesting that the term "learner's permit" is accepted in the driving world, and it seems to have been around a while.
Clip4
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How do you know what they mean? Maybe they could care less, but chose not to.
OneCharlieTango
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I suspect this is a bow to the oppressor/oppressed paradigm that undergirds everything in America today. “Student” implies “teacher,” and a “student/teacher relationship,” which is inherently hierarchical and therefore evil. “Learner” is much softer. We’re all learning, you know. — just trying to find our way in this mean, old world. No hierarchy implied.
Just a guess. . .But whenever you ask “why are we changing this innocuous word?” the answer might be found looking through the Critical Theory lens.
Just a guess. . .But whenever you ask “why are we changing this innocuous word?” the answer might be found looking through the Critical Theory lens.
RyanShort1
Final Approach
But they miss the other long-established use of the word student. I study the weather every single day for my photography job, and I hope to "learn" from that study. I'm a student of the weather, and there's nothing demeaning about that, and there's nothing demeaning about an airline pilot studying things, either.
As far as I can tell, this all started gaining traction sometime before 2018, with articles like this:
When The Community Speaks … When learning is more important than education. Short Notes.
Key considerations for countries steering both their public and private schools achieve quality of school grades.
sheilasingapore.wordpress.com
I"m more opposed to the new narrative on the word student than I am to the forcing of the concept of "learner" when in fact a student may be a very poor learner.
Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe
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Light and Sporty Guy
But, back to the original topic. I would hope that students are learners, but based on my experience in the classroom, I'm not convinced that this is always true.
Pinecone
En-Route
meth·od·ol·o·gy
/ˌmeTHəˈdäləjē/
noun
a system of methods used in a particular area of study or activity.
"a methodology for investigating the concept of focal points"
A method is one way. A methodology is a group of possible methods.
Pinecone
En-Route
And what I see, at least in the nearby big city, is they are so worried about that, they don't actually teach and the students don't learn.
A couple of years ago, they graduated from high school a student/learner that had a GPA of 0.00016
dtuuri
Final Approach
I think "Part 3 of The Airman's Information Manual," YMMV.
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Bob Noel
ok, but none of us are in his league...
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