Aren't "100" Dives enough!?!

[DevonDiver]

I wonder what the original thread participants are doing now... and whether their views on experience have changed 11 years later?

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Holy Lazarus, Batman ... that's gotta be some kind of resurrection record!

The last post prior to today for this thread was about a month before I started diving ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[TSandM]

I'd say the biggest reason I don't think 100 dives is enough to be an instructor is because I know what I thought when I had 100 dives, and I know what I know and how I think after almost 1000. It's different. 100 dives just isn't enough breadth to be a good resource.

 

[James R]

Wow the OP is probably a course director by now

 

[Thalassamania]

I don't see dives as a predictable and meaningful measure. There's, after all, the old 100 dives in the same quarry question. One of the best instructors I ever trained had less than 50 dives and I had to give him a provisional till he logged more dives, some of the more marginal instructors I've trained, at least from my perspective, had thousands of dives. Lynne is right in that what I thought I knew at 100 dives was very different at 1,000 and is even more different at 10,000 ... but that's not the point, what has changed me is not dive piled on dive, but specific experiences that I've had to hang around and wait for tell me that it's more the experiences (which often yield teachable concepts and such) than the uneventful dives in between.

 

[laurin]

I'd say the biggest reason I don't think 100 dives is enough to be an instructor is because I know what I thought when I had 100 dives, and I know what I know and how I think after almost 1000. It's different. 100 dives just isn't enough breadth to be a good resource.

My thoughts exactly... At 100 dives I was pretty much squared away and thought I had my buoyancy control nailed, and probably was right too, for OW at least. But in hindsight I was quite far from where I'm now, and when it comes to teaching, I could have probably taught at an acceptable level (show the trick, observe student do it, keep things safe), but no way could I have produced good divers.

 

[ben_wilson3301]

Should a 16 year old high school kid who was top of her class and has already driven almost a hundred times teach drivers ed? Do you want your child learning from her?

 

[Superlyte27]

Experience does not make a good teacher.

WHAT!?!?!
You are right, experience alone does not make a good teacher. But experience IS A NECESSARY COMPONENT.
You cannot know everything you need to know to be an effective instructor at 100 dives. If you are not certain of this, I can point you to 5 of those 100 dive instructors to prove my point.

 

[Superlyte27]

But like Dee said i also think that to be able to train specialities, especially cave diving for example, you should at least dive caves on a regular basis. Would i be right in thinking that once you have a cave diving cert but you never actually cave dive, lets say over a period of 2 years, you are still certified to teach cave diving to whomever asks for that training from you?

You are incorrect here. My standards say that in order to continue teaching cave diving, I must teach X amount of cave diving classes per year to remain in active good standing.

 

[Superlyte27]

.........I've met many, many instructors who've approached instruction in exactly the same way you are approaching it. I find them to be confident without cause. They have learned theory, but all their experience has been in class, so they have very little practical experience. They are among the very poorest instructors I've encountered. If you continue the way you are planning, you'll be one more in that crowd.

Walter

I agree 100%. I can show you countless examples where the money was there and the IDC was there, but the experience was not. They are terrible instructors with terrible skills in the water, and they are trying to teach skills themselves that they themselves have barely mastered. But dude, go for it, I back you all the way. You guys make me look awesome by comparison. For what it's worth, I had more than 10,000 dives in Cave, Wreck, Tech and Commerical (Hard Hat Diver) before I thought I had something I could offer that other instructors were lacking. What do you have to offer that isn't already out there?