Too windy to fly today, so Adam got me started planning the first cross-country flight (to Charlottsville), which he says we'll do in about a week, depending on the weather.  He spent 2.5 hours helping me fill out a Navigation Log, check the weather, find the true course, figure in the wind to get true heading, then add the magnetic variation to get the magnetic heading, estimate fuel consumption, and file a flight plan.

That's all stuff I had to learn in the abstract while studying for the FAA written test.  This time it was for real (mostly), and as I would have predicted, this time it all made good sense to my gut as well as to my head.  That's somewhat gratifying, because it seems to confirm what I already believed about education--that it's generally best to begin with the concrete and then work toward the abstract.  I suppose it'll all make perfect sense once we take off on that flight.

There's a saying that turns up often on posters in Montessori schools:

I hear and I forget.
I see and I remember.
I do and I understand.

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