Quote:
| Originally Posted by RickG Perhaps instructors should only be qualified to teach as far as one grade below their own?
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Totally agree. This works in the BSAC sytem but with PADI, instructor is a development on top of DM so an instructor could teach a DM course. I don't see how someone who was on a DM course only a few weeks before can be competent to teach a course which should be imparting techniques and experience rather than basic skills. Yes, a Sports Diver could do some of the basic pool training of an Ocean Diver such as mask clearing but certainly not beyond that. I think there is a benefit in getting new divers involved in this. basic instruction under a trained instructor quite early. That happened to me, which I found very useful.
A number of threads have referred to good divers/bad instructors and I've seen several cases of this. Just because someone is a very competent diver doesn't make them a good instructor. For several years, I stopped doing the basic training and concentrated on doing training for Dive Leaders and Advanced Divers. I was then asked to do some basic training because they were short of instructors and found it very difficult. I had lost the empathy with complete beginners and had to work very hard to redevelop teaching skills which had been second nature.
The danger of instructors with a limited range of experience was brought home to me 12 years ago on a dive on David Ainsley's Porpoise to the Garvellachs off Oban. This was a mixed party and I was diving with my 15 year old son (who had already done over 100 dives since he started at the beginning of the previous year). On this boat were two master instructors (their term) at Stoney Cove. They spent a lot of time telling everyone how good they were. The first dive was on the Steps. Three drops down to 42m. Fantastic dive. The two 'experts' stayed in the kelp at the top with a max depth of 11m. The second dive was a high speed drift - a real adrenalin rush. The 'experts' surfaced almost immediately and gave the come and get me signal. It turned out that this was their FIRST sea dive and FIRST boat dive!