I’m a student. I’ve got 8hrs of flight time atm.

From day one I show up- am told “do this do that” with zero explanation why. I have never been sat down and had anything explained to me. Basics like heading, trim- just literally we get in the plane and take off and the instructor tells me what to do and I go through the motions with no understanding of why.

Then he laughs at me for being white knuckled with the yoke. He forced me to take my hands completely off of it once. I’m so stressed out when I get out of the plane every part of my body that was on contact with the seat is drenched in sweat.

I’m not a pussy and while I have anxiety issues I own motorcycles and have almost 1k skydives. So I’m not someone completely foreign to doing “exciting?” things. Calculated risks and being well educated in whatever I’m doing is very important and I obsess and learn every detail. So this has been just complete chaos. I have a log book- I show up and he has me listen to AITAS then we head out and do the preflight check but I’ve never had any lesson on what or why’s of different parts of the plane. I’ve had to do independent study and research on the 172 to learn about the actual plane.

But guess what? I’m not always going out in that. So I’ve shown up to a completely foreign plane with absolutely no lesson on the differences. So I’ve had to independently study three different Cessna types- and the whole “you don’t know what you don’t know” I just feel like I can’t accurately learn something when I don’t know what to look for. There’s book learning then there’s experience and tips an experienced instructor should be providing (I think?)

I get there, do AITAS, preflight and we head out. He just directs me to where I’m supposed to go- I’ve never been sat down and had the runways explained. So I just follow directions then we take off and he’s telling me what to do and say to ATC. I absolutely hate commas bc I sound like a moron bc I don’t know what I’m saying.

This flight school is at a large international airport so not some janky podunk little place. I had a commercial SW flight ahead of me and the instructor suddenly says I have to fall back I was about to get in the commercial planes wake. I guess he zoned out. I ride jet skis etc so understand the effects of wake turbulence. I’d never considered that in the air I was coming in behind a commercial flight and he didn’t say anything until a beginning of turbulence

Am I supposed to be independently finding learning resources? I’m basically renting a plane and being told what to do is that normal?