When teaching a child to ski, is the snowplow still the way to go? In reading current takes on it, the advice was not to, as the child would have to unlearn it later. Thoughts?

I don't know about snowplow. It still is a fundamental technique of skiing - basically, there are always those times when you need to snowplow for whatever reason.

That said, there is a drill you can start with, which teaches parallel turns pretty quickly for many people, and that is learning to pivot both skis, parallel, from 90 degrees across the fall line to the opposite 90 degrees, repeatedly, as you travel slowly down the slope. You'll be just standing upright, it helps to have arms out to the sides, to reinforce that the skis need to match the position of the arms (90 degrees) at the end of each pivot and the upper body needs to be pointing down the fall line the whole time. As you become expert at this drill, you can actually go beyond 90 degrees, to about 100 or so, with the ski tips actually pointing a bit uphill.

The goal is to link slow, skidded pivot slips with the same amount of physical effort throughout the entire pivot and constant speed throughout the cycle. You'll start on the greenest of the green trails, but this same drill can be done on black diamond trails. So this is just to teach ankle steering and counter-rotation at the waist, and the idea that the upper & lower body need to move independently. Angulation and edging and carving can be taught later...

Once your student has it down, move on before they become dependent on it. The new gear allows you to get past very quickly. Actually, you get through all the preliminary turns quickly and pretty much go to an open parallel turn. I'm no ski instructor, but I found teaching my daughter the fundalmentals...pretty fundamental. Now she wants her mom's tele's. Yowza, RC

My kids just took the beginner lesson at Belleayre this past month and they still teach the snowplow, but they call it "the wedge".

Jannette

Yep, gotta watch that association with ginormus, lumbering public works vehicles carrying large blades of metal, sand spreaders, flashing lights and a line of traffic behind. "Wedge" turns it is.
Enjoy the remainder of the season. RC

I have heard kids in lessons being told to 'make a slice of pizza' (ie. wedge).
Disclaimer: I swear I only overheard this. I was not part of the lesson.

Not to be confused with "pizza snow" often found outside of college dorms on Monday morning. RC