What constitutes professionalism?

[Diver0001]

He may be very professional, but not very competent -- not through carelessness or lack of responsibility, but through ignorance. And if you get through an IDC ignorant, whose fault is that?

Aaaahhhhhh. I know one of these. He's a CD. Useless diver (no exaggeration, I couldn't use him for surface support on a tek dive) but a *great* teacher for recreational newbies.

Yip Man.... you probably don't know him, but you know his students. In the last 10 years or so of his life he probably didn't exchange a single blow with his Kung Fu students (I know this because I'm personally acquainted with one of his students, who was my teacher).... in his younger years his "students" had to fight their way past him to get into the training hall.... but in the end.....

In the end.... he managed to set a precident that Kung Fu circles are still trying to live up to.... How? because *he* drove his flag into the ground? No. Because his students, among which were Bruce Lee (not over skilled but the best known outside Kung Fu circles) did.

He understood *everything* about his sport.... and trained without being the "super-hero".

What many divers seem to not understand is that the ability to train and the ability to dive are not the same skills. Kung Fu practitioners have understood this for 100 years, maybe more.

R..

 

[boulderjohn]

What many divers seem to not understand is that the ability to train and the ability to dive are not the same skills. Kung Fu practitioners have understood this for 100 years, maybe more.

I developed a fairly complex theory about this many years ago when I was coaching basketball. I noticed that the coaches whose records indicated that they were consistently doing an excellent job year in and year out were rarely great players themselves. Many were downright mediocre. I will blushing admit that I was probably well below mediocre as a player, yet my teams won more than 80% of their games over my 14 year career, and I was once selected to coach the all-state game.

I saw it carried over in other sports as well. Back when I was involved in competitive volleyball, one of the top Universities (I think it was Penn State) formed its first team as a club activity and needed a sponsor. They recruited an interested faculty member who had never played, and he eventually became one of the top coaches in the country.

I coached youth soccer as well, and you can be sure that the majority of coaches (like me) never even played before being roped into coaching their children's teams, yet many in the club in which I worked ended up taking teams to Europe where they challenged for and even won tournaments like the Holland Cup. (My own team did not fare so well in the Holland Cup, but we gave it a pretty good ride.)

The theory I developed about this went as far to suggest that in some ways those coaches had an advantage in training people at that level. It would take a long time to explain my theory, but it had a lot to do with not asking people to perform skills they weren't ready to perform, personally needing to analyze the basic mechanics of skills that came naturally and easily to others, greater patience and empathy for the new learner, a closer personal relationship with learning tactics that worked for them, etc.

 

[JKPAO]

John, I don't know who said it first but I will repeat it in this case only! This is in reference to coaches who did not play very well but could teach.

Those who can, do
those who can't teach

I do not believe it but , someone ment something? when they said it!
See you topside! John

 

[TSandM]

Well, I'll try a third time. I wasn't trying to talk about people who teach better than they can do -- I'm familiar with the concept. I teach riding that way. I understand it deeply but I'm not athletic enough to execute what I know. But I can coach somebody who is and help them get better results than I could get if I got on the horse.

But that's not what I meant. I was talking about someone who is technically not a very good diver, and is teaching his students to be divers who aren't very good technically because that's what he KNOWS. He fills every other criterion of a very professional instructor -- he's organized, thorough, careful, caring, and insists that his students meet his criteria for competency before he'll pass them. The problem is that his criteria are woefully low because he doesn't know any better. Is this a professional instructor? Bob's initial post would imply he doesn't think so. I'm not so sure.

I think someone like that may well be more "professional" than someone with superb skills and tons of knowledge who, for example, gropes the women in his classes. That's unprofessional conduct in my book. So is teaching good skills and then taking novice divers to 200 feet.

I guess I divide professionalism and educational competence somewhat. The best is when someone has both, but I'd rather a professional who is less than a rocket scientist, rather than a rock star instructor who behaves in unprofessional ways.

 

[Sas]

This series of question has a lot of variables. Are you talking about the instructor who just goes to the quarry & does multiple "bounce dives" (15ft for 15 min) just to get his count up, with no type of skills or practice? Or how about the Instructor who does multiple dives, but diligently practices his skills & hones them to a razor's edge?

Even doing 100 dives with skills practice is not any where near enough dives for me to bother with in an instructor. I learned a lot in my first 100 dives, but I learned a whole heap more in my next 200 and I still consider myself very n00bish. I can't imagine teaching students even though I am competent in the water and know a lot about diving (well at least for the OW level type teaching). It's just not enough real world experience in my opinion. So yea, I would not consider an instructor with so few dives at all. I am sure they can teach students safely in most cases but yea, I have learned a hell of a lot more from instructors with 1000s of dives and gotten a far more well rounded idea of what they are teaching.

But yea I am aware that this might not be a popular opinion...

Had I not encountered Bob when I did, I would have been one of those instructors. Given how long it's taken me to achieve what I would consider acceptable diving skills, I'm quite certain that mine, as an instructor with a year and a half or so of diving experience, would have sucked. And I would almost certainly have taught people on their knees, known nothing about trim, and had no idea that it was possible to dive without stirring up silt. I wouldn't have known those things because nobody around me knew or talked about those things, and they weren't in my classes, and I had no clue that there WERE any other classes or any other worthwhile things to learn. But I would have done my very best job of meeting the criteria in my other post, in teaching the things I knew and the way I had been taught to teach.

I think attitude is a lot to do with whether someone is professional but also skills and knowledge, so I personally would not have considered you a very professional instructor... I know some people who mean really well but they just don't have enough real world experience in diving and thus make poor to average instructors.

 

[dumpsterDiver]

Well, I'll try a third time. I wasn't trying to talk about people who teach better than they can do -- I'm familiar with the concept. I teach riding that way. I understand it deeply but I'm not athletic enough to execute what I know. But I can coach somebody who is and help them get better results than I could get if I got on the horse.

But that's not what I meant. I was talking about someone who is technically not a very good diver, and is teaching his students to be divers who aren't very good technically because that's what he KNOWS. He fills every other criterion of a very professional instructor -- he's organized, thorough, careful, caring, and insists that his students meet his criteria for competency before he'll pass them. The problem is that his criteria are woefully low because he doesn't know any better. Is this a professional instructor? Bob's initial post would imply he doesn't think so. I'm not so sure.

I think someone like that may well be more "professional" than someone with superb skills and tons of knowledge who, for example, gropes the women in his classes. That's unprofessional conduct in my book. So is teaching good skills and then taking novice divers to 200 feet.

I guess I divide professionalism and educational competence somewhat. The best is when someone has both, but I'd rather a professional who is less than a rocket scientist, rather than a rock star instructor who behaves in unprofessional ways.

Damn you reminded me of ANOTHER drawback of those HOG BP/W harness, they don't have those cross chest buckles that many instructors need to help women with on the first night in the pool.

 

[burna]

My first wife and I periodically went around and around on this topic because I'd tell her she was NOT a "professional journalist" since journalism was NOT a profession -- whereas I was a professional since I was a practicing attorney and the law was a profession.

Wow! That comes across as one of the most arrogant things I've read in a long time!

 

[Peter Guy]

Burna -- and just what is arrogant about what I wrote? If you don't like the definition please tell me what is wrong with my definition of a "professional." Journalists have no agreed upon set of standards to define who is, or who is not, a journalist. (Note, there is in fact a BIG controversy within journalism as to whether bloggers, for example, are "journalists." But with no generally agreed upon standards, who knows who is a journalist.) As a result, there is no profession and without a profession, there can be no professional. It should be a simple concept.

Too many people, and perhaps you?, confuse competence with professionalism. My ex-wife was (in fact still is) an extremely competent journalist -- she just isn't a member of a profession.

 

[hudson]

Wow! That comes across as one of the most arrogant things I've read in a long time!

Nah, you are reading too much into it... if you consider the textbook definition of "profession" it's distinct from "occupation". Now I don't know if journalism qualifies or not (probably not as there are a lot of journalists with no distinct education in journalism but I may be wrong), but law certainly does.

So one could argue a professional must have a profession, but of course that's not the colloquial use.

(end hijack)

 

[gcbryan]

I would agree with Peter's interpretation in this instance. To often people are talking about going "pro" or proclaiming if you don't like the way things are become a professional.

It's just misused in the area of diving. The word should be commercial. You've gone commercial if you are paid. Going "pro" for one thing (other than being incorrect) is like patting yourself on the back.

Other's should compliment you on being professional in the way you conduct yourself. The person acting in a professional way shouldn't be describing themselves that way.

Of course Bob's original point and question has been well addressed by now and of course you can act in a professional manner regardless of whether you are paid or not.