I think if you look at this in the context of a future student pilot, it really seems fishy. You give them a printed product based on 40 hours but then you tell them that's a fallacy and we will barely follow it.
I feel your pain. I, too, struggled with this "phony 40 hour syllabus" for many many years.
But it is up to you, the instructor, to educate the student about government regulations.
It might help if you know and share some background about the "40 hours".
The 40 hours minimum to Private was established long, long ago when civilian pilot training was much much more simple.
There were no coded airspaces to memorize and deal with. There was simple "controlled" and "uncontrolled". And there were not that many controlled spaces, like Towered airports.
Minimum Equipment Lists? Ha! You gotta be kiddin'! Everybody learned to fly out of a non-towered airport in a fabric covered tailwheel, and there was no PTS. The Examiner checked to see if you could fly some of the maneuvers in the Flight Training Handbook, and in his opinion, if you were safe, you passed.
Flight time was from take-off to landing, so you really got 40 hours in the air, not 35 hours air time, and 5 hours on the hobbs taxiing and running up.
You didn't have to fly 10/15 minutes to the "Practice area", you could just get a few miles away from the airport.
You didn't need to learn to talk on the radio. Or use radio navigation.
There was no instrument flying requirement.
There was no night flying requirement.
As the Government has added these regulations and skill requirements over the years, they have not upped the training time requirement.
They have made a few proposals to add time, but have always been stopped by the special interest groups, such as AOPA and others.
Now I use this antique "40 hour minimum" as a starting place to begin explaining the basic flaws that you, and all pilots, will encounter dealing with government regs.
Remember, it isn't just 'the FAA', it's the entire Federal Government and all it's political flaws.
