The Philosophy of Diver Training

[Jim Lapenta]

No it is not pushing standards if those are the local conditions. The diver must be able to dive in them. And keeping conditions as benign as possible is driven not by reality but by marketing. To train divers to operate under the notion that they will have to come back to learn what used to be basic knowledge in ALL OW courses is not driven by the desire to produce better trained divers but to produce more profits. Tides and surge are covered in the diving environment lecture in BOW by several agencies.

And again what is mastery? You have stated the book definition. What is yours? As a potential new instructor you should be thinking about this. Not your CD's definition, but as I'm sure you want to be known as an excellent instructor, your defintion of mastery. And it is not hard. The kind of diver you would want to dive with as a buddy is what your students should be.

Mine is them being able to perform basic skills such as mask remove and replace, reg retrieval, and weight belt off and on in midwater, horizontal, while swimming, and not changing depth by more than 2 feet plus or minus. They should also not panic or demonstrate overt nervousness. It should be fluid, relaxed, and appear to be instinctive. This is not hard to do in a class where this is how the skills have not only been demo'd but learned by the student and practiced in this way.

PADI does not prohibit this being taught. What they do with their inflexibility in allowing instructors to move skills around is make this more difficult. The first skill a student on scuba should learn is buoyancy control and horizontal trim. If they get this, and with the mask remove and replace, and snorkel clear covered previously in the snorkel and skin diving session(s), performing basic skills as divers and looking like divers is easy to learn.

 

[DCBC]

I think I understand what you are trying to say. However, I believe every agency establishes standards that it deems are the minimum acceptable. If agency X decides buddy-breathing, for example, is a required skill, then that becomes their minimum standard. All agencies will certify students as long as they meet their standards, their minimum standards.

Granted, some agencies may have more requirements for their students than others, but they are still teaching to their respective minimum standards and will certify divers accordingly.

The point I'm making is that some agencies expect the instructor to train to minimum standards and allow them to add whatever additional training is required, examine the student on all training and only certify if everything is mastered.

The only determining factor for another agency is the minimum standards. Its instructors are prohibited from examining on anything beyond these minimums regardless of what skill-sets are required (in the instructors opinion) to maintain safety.

 

[Kingpatzer]

So if I understand you correctly, the PADI program is not intended to produce a diver who is capable of diving in local conditions. People who would do their diving in the North Atlantic should take a PADI program in Florida, come back to the North Atlantic and take a specialty program to dive in the local area? If this is the case, why are there PADI 5 Star facilities bordering North Atlantic waters that are allowed to certify PADI divers? Are all these in violation of PADI standards?

If they are certifying to dive in that particular ocean, I am honestly curious as to how PADI QA people aren't questioning them. (5-Star btw, is more or less a purchased affiliation, sadly). Again, I'm still in my IDC, but the standards seem pretty clear to me about requiring fairly benign conditions for the required OW dives.

 

[schaffld]

But what is "reasonably comfortable", "fluid", and "repeatable"? Who sets the standard and where are these items quantified. And if my example is incorrect why are there divers in open water doing this and receiving a card? The terms are so vague. And since we are talking about PADI in this example let me state that there are many excellent PADI instructors out there. But what about the ones who are not? Who defines these terms in their classes? The excellent instructor may require his/her students to perform these skills in midwater without changing depth. But the mediocre or bad one will think them doing it kneeling on a platform and doing them when he/she knows that the diver will not be able to do this in real life on a coral reef will still issue them a card. So in that way there really is no across the board standard and uniformity is an illusion.

Hi Jim,

Yes, there is a degree of ambiguity there and instructor judgment plays a big role in evaluating a student. Instructor judgment is also addressed in the PADI system and, I believe, gives one enough latitude to elaborate and expand on any particular standard.

We are slowly drifting into the realm of the "it's not the agency, it's the instructor" argument again, and I think that issue has been debated ad nauseum on SB as well.

You do concede that there are excellent PADI instructors out there... I haven't read every one of your posts, but I think that's the first time I've ever seen that.

Seriously, I will be doing my instructor course this summer with PADI. Your words, DCBC's, and a plethora of other contributors on SB will be ringing in my head. I appreciate the discussions.

 

[DCBC]

Couldn't you put together a "North Atlantic Diving" specialty class, then sell it as a package with OW?

Terry

A PADI Instructor cannot enroll a student into a specialty class unless he is first certified. I don't need to put together a specialty certification as my training agency expects me to be responsible, in-that I don't certify a diver to dive locally until they are prepared adequately. To accomplish this, my basic / open-water class encompasses everything the student needs to dive here, but the course duration is a minimum of 50 hours.

 

[DCBC]

If they are certifying to dive in that particular ocean, I am honestly curious as to how PADI QA people aren't questioning them. (5-Star btw, is more or less a purchased affiliation, sadly). Again, I'm still in my IDC, but the standards seem pretty clear to me about requiring fairly benign conditions for the required OW dives.

The problem is that the focus of PADI training is warm water under idealistic conditions. This is an old argument that I've had with PADI HQ for years. I owned a PADI Training Facility and left PADI after 17 years of instructing. As PADI has always had the lowest standards in the industry, I ran NAUI, ACUC and CMAS programs and offered PADI as an optional certification.

 

[Jim Lapenta]

I have said it before. A few times. Because it is true. I've worked with one or two of them as a DM and dove with some as well just for fun. And I honestly think we'd see more if they were allowed to teach a bit differently in some cases or not held back by shop quotas and timetables.

 

[Jim Lapenta]

I'd also like to say I'm really enjoying this thread. there are obviously some strong opinions but so far it does not seem to have degenerated into outright attacks and name calling. I hope it can continue in this way.

 

[Jim Lapenta]

If they are certifying to dive in that particular ocean, I am honestly curious as to how PADI QA people aren't questioning them. (5-Star btw, is more or less a purchased affiliation, sadly). Again, I'm still in my IDC, but the standards seem pretty clear to me about requiring fairly benign conditions for the required OW dives.

Not being a smartass and maybe I just missed, it but where are you from and where do you plan to be teaching? Just curious because if you were from this area or DCBC's or the PNW you might have a totally different idea as to what benign is. I;d also be curous as to what different types of conditions you've dove in so far and where. Really this is a serious question. I felt as an instructor I owed it to my students to dive in as many different places and conditions as possible. It's why I took an ice class last year and went to Puerto Rico a month ago. And why I took my drysuit to Monterey when my son graduated from the Presidio. Wide and varied experience is invaluable to an instructor. Especially when you don;t know where your students tell you half way thru class that they plan on diving here or there. You can better prepare and educate them.

 

[schaffld]

The point I'm making is that some agencies expect the instructor to train to minimum standards and allow them to add whatever additional training is required, examine the student on all training and only certify if everything is mastered.

The only determining factor for another agency is the minimum standards. Its instructors are prohibited from examining on anything beyond these minimums regardless of what skill-sets are required (in the instructors opinion) to maintain safety.

Hi DCBC,

Thanks for the reply. I believe the inclusion of "Instructor Judgment" allows an instructor in any agency to add additional training as he/she sees fit. As I mentioned in my post to Jim, we can very easily drift into the whole "instructor vs. agency" argument again if we aren't careful. Nevertheless, I appreciate the discussion.

I work in health care which is inundated with a mountain of policies, procedures, and standards... and rightly so. However, there is inevitably a phrase or clause in the policy and procedure manual that allows for "clinical judgment", "professional assessment", and other such ambiguous terms that permit us to use our brains and our experience and still operate within the limits of hospital-accepted standards.

Unfortunately, there will be those whose interpretation of such vague expressions will contribute to the deterioration of today's training which is lamented upon in SB again and again... Ooops... I'm drifting into that "instructor vs. agency" debate again.

Thanks again for your thoughts... As I mentioned in my post to Jim, your words, along with many other people's, will be rattling in my head as I do my IDC with PADI this summer. Cheers.