The Instructor Debate

[daz]

I think this idea of being able to impart the required knowledge is enough for an instructor is unfortunately not enough...

Unfortunately the OW course is not conducted entirely in a class room.

For instance I don't suppose any of us would expect an instructor to suddenly panic because the vis got kicked to crap and bolt for the surface leaving students at the bottom or have problems with a drysuit and end up doing a bouyant ascent and then refuse to go back down to the students because it freaked them out....

so how do you weed these people out?

Daz

[Narked@50]

All good stuff and I have to agree with most of it.

Fast tracking? - I accept it has a place but do not feel it is the "best" way for most instructors.

Slow tracking? - Equaly not the best way, but probably even worse if it's "too" slow, as the instructor could be potentialy always rusty themselves.

A healthy balance to me would be the "best for the most" of us. Like many have said, it is individualy and we don't all take to it like "ducks to water". (and their bouyancy is garbage!)

James

[daz]

Originally Posted by narkedat50

(and their bouyancy is garbage!)

Oh you've seen them as well!

Daz

[Stu Sheridan]

Im sorry if this has been said but I didnt read the whole thread.: Drunk

I personally would not be happy being taught by someone who has just "mastered the hover".
What a load of bollocks.
Instructors should be experienced divers not someone who's spent 6 months learning.

PADI suck.

Stu.

[daz]

Originally Posted by Stu Sheridan

Im sorry if this has been said but I didnt read the whole thread.: Drunk

I personally would not be happy being taught by someone who has just "mastered the hover".
What a load of bollocks.
Instructors should be experienced divers not someone who's spent 6 months learning.

PADI suck.

Stu.

Come on Stu, don't hold back, tell us what you really think

Bit of a sweeping generalisation! There is room for improvement in ALL the organisations. What PADI do they do well, afterall they teach more people to dive than any other organisation. Hell I don't agree with everything they do but I think we do tend to lose sight of what they do well.

Daz

[Mark Chase]

Whilst it is very true that a good diver may be a crap instructor and a good instructor may be a crap diver, the fact remains that in diving experience is king. 60 dives in 12 months is fairly intensive diving and definitely a fast track to dive experience IF they were carried out in the sea. If that’s 50dives in Stony cove and 10 in the sea than your still very much a novice.

13 weeks 0W to instructor is fine by me as long as they state that newly qualified instructors have to work as assistants to an experienced instructor for 12 months before being allowed to train a student. This apprentice type scheme would hopefully add an old head to keen new shoulders and allow time for personal development.

I like the DIR system where the instructors have to do X amount of 'proper' diving a year to hold on to their training certificate.

The instructor who taught me OWR isn’t a proper diver. IMHO he dives for a living rather than as a passion. As a result equipment advice was based on other motives than what was best or me and the course stuck to the syllabus with no guidance or purls of wisdom thrown in. Despite that I found the standard of the course for OWR to be acceptable even if the fins were a waste of money .

My OWR final instructor was called Joup. He was a diver. When not teaching me he would talk about diving and his next planned trip / adventure. His rig had all sorts of tweaks and mods and he was happy to explain the reasoning behind them and discus aspects of diving slightly outside the PADI box. I found the difference quite apparent and feel very lucky to have had him.

Having done a few dives now I can accept that no matter how good I thought I was after 50 dives (and I thought I was great )
I just hadn’t been exposed to enough cock-ups and dangerous situations to be able to assist another diver in an emergency. I could cope with myself (Just) but I was of no benefit to others. This is the bit about new fast track instructors teaching OW students that really worries me. When the student has a FUBR moment will the instinctive reactions of the instructor kick in or will he /she suffer the panic and confusion of the adrenalin hit and screw up.


ATB

Mark Chase

[Andrew H]

I'm not going to take anything personally which is posted here, noone here has dived with me or been taught by me, I understand that it's nothing personal. Some of the beliefs surrounding such long courses are not always true, and I am only able to relay my experience, which may not be representative. Hopefully there will be someone else who will own up, and we can hear another experience.

Certainly the IDC sets you up to pass the IE, your AI course is very much a smaller version of the IDC. Taken consecutively they form a solid foundation for passing the IE. As has been said elsewhere, once you get your driving licence you are qualified to learn. The same is true of your any diving cert. PADI acknowledge this with further training. We always tried to get new divers onto the next advanced course if possible. Many divers took us up on this, and always enjoyed the course. BSAC obviously have similar procedure. In BSAC clubs you will at least be diving with more experienced and qualified members. PADI have no such way of guaranteeing your buddy.

For my own experience, I don't remember the numbers, but the majority of my dives were in the sea, at several locations, weather permitting. Drift dives were in a river and altitude in a lake. I dived three lakes on my courses. Lakes are quite different diving and should probably also be compulsory.

It has also been said that some people are great divers and poor instructors, and some are great instructors and poor divers. Some are both. I think there is a difference here between experienced diver and experienced instructor. Experienced instructors should be better. Experienced divers might not be better instructors. How an LDS chooses to apply it's newly qualfied instructors is another matter. My LDS chose to have new instructors teach open water and advanced courses. Often the guy driving the RIB for me would be a master instructor or such. You know you've made it when your driver is a course director!

I too have experienced cert hunting. I think it starts in the quest for MSDT at 20 certs, and for some people doesn't let up. In the low paid (often unpaid) world of instructing, sometimes the certs are all that instructors get out of teaching courses. I never got caught up in that thankfully.

It is certainly a lifstyle thing but ambition in diving is alive and well. Some people whatever they do are going to want to get to the top. More and more of those people are moving to diving. There are courses now which couple diving with management and tourism. Diving as an industry around the world is changing, much as some of us don't like it. HSE will never let us go back to the old days and as a lifestyle it is losing some of it's appeal.

Andrew

[MattS]

What PADI do they do well, afterall they teach more people to dive than any other organisation.

Of course that does not mean they are doing it well, just that they are selling it well.

Anyhow my 2Ps worth



Can an instructor with 12 months experience teach an entry diving course?
Well yes, teaching someone to clear a mask, purge a reg or even do a lift, in a nicely controlled environment is not exactly difficult.

Can an instructor with 12 months experience be completely competant themselves?
No. I don't care who you are or how many dives you have, it takes over a year to develop good finning and buoyancy control. Sure you can get adequate with these skills in a short period by kicking the backside out of diving. But I have never met anyone that I would call good, that had not been diving routinely for over a year.

Can divers teach diving?
Yes. Buddy a trainee with a really good diver and I will put money on the trainee learning something and most likely something that was not covered during the confines of a course. Unfortunately, thanks to the HSE, there is now a very definate line between instructors and divers. Gone are the days when helping with training was a normal part of a divers progression. Whichever route you choose these days, the path to qualified instructor costs time and money, which it appears dedicated divers would rather spend on actually diving. Dare I say it, it has even become unfashionable for divers to admit that they spend time with newbies and trainees. Just check the rep of people that report deep, difficult dives opposed to those that report helping out by instructing in a club.

A hole seems to have developed on the road to diver progression, which often leaves the newly qualiified in limbo between learning to dive and learning to be a diver. On commercial charters you can't help but notice the increasing numbers of people without a clue, accompanied by buddies without a clue. Even in a club environment it can be difficult for a newly certified diver to get a dive as no one is prepared to risk their own dive being aborted early.

Do good divers make good instructors?
Depends. I pity the first trainee I take in after the Summer. When you have become used to diving with people that are somewhat squared away, the lack of ability displayed by the average trainee is rather shocking. It takes me a couple lessons to get back to a more touchy feely style. Apparently the trainees in the branch think I am a 'demanding' instructor which I guess has a place, but I have to watch it with total newbies.

So where does that leave us. Well pretty much with the problems we know we have. Instructors with little experience believing the praise heaped on them by their students. Instructors who dive only in controlled conditions forgetting how tough it can be out at sea. Instructors that believe that only instructors can teach. Commercial instructors putting money before safety. Lets not forget the divers in this. Experienced divers often blame all the ills of the diving World on instructors and inadequate courses. Many have forgotten what it was like to be a novice.

The people we may be neglecting here are the trainees themselves. I wonder how many would choose to continue their courses and holidays if they knew how little experience some instructors and guides have.

I guess the final question is where do we go from here? Possibly where we are now is that too many instructors are up their own backsides and too many divers have forgotten that you can't expect someone to be self sufficient after 10 or 20 dives.

Ideally I see instructors and divers learning to work together. Instructors, even if they are fast trak, can get the basic skills across to an average Joe very efficiently. But it takes a diver to teach people to be divers, by passing on their experience and plugging the gaps in the newbies abilities. So instructors could start reffering their newbies to clubs and divers themselves could take part in those clubs and maybe sacrifice the odd offshore for a leisurely day at the beach helping someone get a little more out the sport a little safer. Currently we seem to have both instructors and experienced divers complaining about diver standards but neither group willing to do much about it.

Oh and we need to be a little more honest with trainees themselves. You can actually die underwater quite easily. Skills need maintenance. A buddy will not always look after you. When you tell people these things they tend to be a little more cautious about what they are doing and who they are diving with.

YMMV

[NeilB]

Maybe, seems to fit in though.

The girl that taught my kids to dive had not been alive along as I had been diving!

Was I nervous about her teaching? You bet I was. Nothing to do with her age thought. I videoed their underwater lessons and at one time my youngest son is behind her for 2.5 minutes while my other son did his fin pivots. Anything could have happened in that time and she would not have seen it.

Experience is a good teacher......but the lesson can be a hard one.

Neil

[Mark Chase]

Just check the rep of people that report deep, difficult dives opposed to those that report helping out by instructing in a club.

Not sure I agree with that, as an example Paul Oliver is firmly in that catagory and he is well respected and praised regularly for his hard work and comitment to bringing on new divers I for one think his input is very valuble to these boards.

No quible with the rest of it all good commets.

Apparently the trainees in the branch think I am a 'demanding' instructor which I guess has a place, but I have to watch it with total newbies

Never!

I find that hard to beleive

ATB

Mark Chase