The right way to get certified

[Hawkwood]

...
While it is important to make sure your students are having fun while learning, it's also important to make sure that they achieve the objectives of the class in a way that develops both their skills and confidence. I can be a drill sargeant or a kindergarten teacher ... or many things in between. Which approach I take for a given student depends as much on their goals and learning style as it does the curriculum and objectives of the class.

It really depends on the student, Matt ... for example, based on reading your posts I would probably need to take a very different approach to teaching you than I would someone like TSandM, who is a very analytical and self-critical person.

This is also why some instructors can be completely right for some students, and completely wrong for others ... because there needs to be a compatibility between teaching style and learning style, and that's going to be different for each of us.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

Right on Bob!

I have learned that this is the toughest part of being an Instructor. It's a piece of cake if all students were just like those in the training videos....but that is not reality.

I seriously doubt I could have coped with some of the teaching situations I have been in, without some prior "life skills" that involved mentoring and developing new professionals (I was a senior geologist at an engineering firm). I've also learned to bring in someone else if I (or the student) are having difficulties that I can't seem to overcome.

Bill

 

[Quero]

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A ScubaBoard Staff Message...

Time for intermission, folks....
And during this break, let me remind you that the topic of this thread is preferences in training locales. Posts discussing the prerogative of the OP to offer an opinion are considered off topic and have been removed. Please focus on the topic at hand as you turn your attention back to the thread.

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[TSandM]

I do think that very new divers are often not very good judges of how good their classes or instructors are. I loved my OW instructors, until I got quite a way down the road and realized just how poor my skills were and how much I didn't know.

In my opinion, someone who comes out of their open water class and has consistent problems descending and problems holding stops, and who doesn't completely understand the process involved in determining proper weighting, has not been well-served by their instructors, no matter how much fun the class was.

Diving is a recreational activity, so it should be fun. Classes should be fun, except where they can't be -- and where they can't be is where the instructors has to refocus the student and/or make her repeat skills until the instructors is sure that the student has the technique down well enough to be safe. Peter has had students who really don't want to do things over again, or who simply won't pay attention or stop clowning around, and those students he does not pass as certified open water divers. At some point, a "student" of anything has to apply a little discipline and recognize that teaching is something the instructor does, but learning is something the student has to do.

 

[ScubaSteve1962]

I do think that very new divers are often not very good judges of how good their classes or instructors are. I loved my OW instructors, until I got quite a way down the road and realized just how poor my skills were and how much I didn't know.

In my opinion, someone who comes out of their open water class and has consistent problems descending and problems holding stops, and who doesn't completely understand the process involved in determining proper weighting, has not been well-served by their instructors, no matter how much fun the class was.

Diving is a recreational activity, so it should be fun. Classes should be fun, except where they can't be -- and where they can't be is where the instructors has to refocus the student and/or make her repeat skills until the instructors is sure that the student has the technique down well enough to be safe. Peter has had students who really don't want to do things over again, or who simply won't pay attention or stop clowning around, and those students he does not pass as certified open water divers. At some point, a "student" of anything has to apply a little discipline and recognize that teaching is something the instructor does, but learning is something the student has to do.

Don't those things come with practice, practice, diving, diving and more practice?

 

[Peter Guy]

Don't those things come with practice, practice, diving, diving and more practice?

Not necessarily because it depends on what the person knows prior to practicing. IF the student hasn't been shown/trained how to do "X" then practicing "Y" won't help them perfect "X."

To go back to something to which TSandM alluded, if she had never been shown/taught that it was possible to do non-silting kicks (JUST an example), all the diving practice in the world wouldn't have allowed her to perfect that skill.

 

[RTee]

Matt, not being privied to your very personal experience, I will say that what you propose is probably the right way to go for somebody whose whole diving aspirations evolve around vacationing scuba diving in warm exotic locations and may even apply to the divers living in lower Florida or some other exotic places based on the fact that what you will be taught will completely satisfy those diving requirements. Sadly, such is not the case for some if not most European counterparts, fellow canadian divers and those US residents who are unfortunate enough to live in the northern part of United States. I would even venture to suggest that for most of us, the end product of such a proposal do represent an ill-prepared, ill-equipped and skilled diver for handling our local diving conditions. For those who were trained and/or dive regularly in Puget Sound, California cold kelp water, Atlantic, local mud holes, greenish moving cold canadian type of water, etc, going South to exotic locations for diving is refreshing and relaxing as the diving conditions encountered are quite frankly very mild compare to what we are used to. Such is not the case for those doing the opposite...training wearing minimal thermal protection, great visibility and near ideal diving conditions.

Instructional quality...depends on the instructors and not on the location. One could also argue that training locally, nobody feels the crunch of return flight deadline, unless of course you ended up scheduling your course so close to your departure (lack of planning) that undue and unwarranted pressure is put on the training establishment. However, at comparable quality, I still stand by my original position, you will end up being a much better rounded OW diver if you do your training locally than doing it at a resort.

Lastly, if you like using your vacation time the way you did and it suits you and your travelling companion, then it is great. However, in my case, my GF and I are no longer contemplating similar diving training (her interest now lies in underwater photography as mine is more toward extended range and/or cavern). Therefore attempting to do training/certification on vacation would mean spending more time away from her which is totally unacceptable to the two of us. I will side with those individuals who look at vacations as a mean to relax and truely enjoy my off-time in the company of my tender half. It would be interesting to see (great idea for a poll that I will not initiate) how many significant others are involved in scuba diving and to what level compare to the individual). Many of my diving friends have non-diver spouses and the idea of going on vacation and be split for an extended period of the day is quite unappealing to say the least.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Don't those things come with practice, practice, diving, diving and more practice?

Yes, and no. A student still needs to comprehend the basic mechanics of what they're trying to practice. I just finished up a skills workshop with a student who ... recently certified ... told me she was having difficulty descending and ascending ... and that she'd never even attempted to do a mid-water safety stop (common among folks out here who shore dive all the time) I went into the workshop with the expectation that I'd have to spend a lot of time with her on those things ... but it turns out that after going through it step-by-step and then asking her to do it, she was able to perform a passable descent and ascent on the first attempt. Mid-water stops took a bit more work, but after a four-dive workshop she was pretty darn solid on stopping anywhere in the water column she wanted to.

Now, certainly she'll get much better at it with practice ... and needs some more repetitions before she can be consistent at it while task-loaded ... but it didn't take a lot of repetitions for her to get it right, or to be able to repeat the process ... it took a clear explanation of the how, what, and why of the skill ... a demonstration ... and bit of positive reinforcement when she did what I asked her to do.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

---------- Post added at 12:55 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:51 PM ----------

Not necessarily because it depends on what the person knows prior to practicing. IF the student hasn't been shown/trained how to do "X" then practicing "Y" won't help them perfect "X."

To go back to something to which TSandM alluded, if she had never been shown/taught that it was possible to do non-silting kicks (JUST an example), all the diving practice in the world wouldn't have allowed her to perfect that skill.

... Reminds me of the Far Side cartoon where a bunch of geese are walking along in a V-formation with one goose pointing skyward at another bunch of geese flying overhead in a V-formation ... and a caption that reads "Hey, look what THEY'RE doing!" ...

... Bob (Grateful DIver)

 

[FPDocMatt]

Diving is a recreational activity, so it should be fun. Classes should be fun, except where they can't be -- and where they can't be is where the instructors has to refocus the student and/or make her repeat skills until the instructors is sure that the student has the technique down well enough to be safe.

I disagree. They can be fun then too. It takes a bit more skill on the part of the instructor, that's all.

---------- Post added at 05:10 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:05 PM ----------

I'd like to start this thread over, since there are things in my original post which were offensive to some and downright ignorant to others.

The title should be changed to "The way I would recommend getting certified".

The post would read something like this:

I was told before being certified that the best way to be certified is to do a course in the states. I was told that if you go to a resort to get certified, your training will be rushed and inadequate.

In fact, you can get certified at a resort, and the training can be thorough and adequate.

And if you do get trained at a resort, you may find that the people are friendlier there.

I would recommend doing an e-learner course. The way this works is, you do the PADI online portion of the course at home at your leisure. You print out a certificate, take it with you to the resort. Then you do the pool and open water portions there at the resort.

It's a great time!

 

[Pullmyfinger]

I disagree. They can be fun then too. It takes a bit more skill on the part of the instructor, that's all.

---------- Post added at 05:10 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:05 PM ----------

I'd like to start this thread over, since there are things in my original post which were offensive to some and downright ignorant to others.

The title should be changed to "The way I would recommend getting certified".

The post would read something like this:

I was told before being certified that the best way to be certified is to do a course in the states. I was told that if you go to a resort to get certified, your training will be rushed and inadequate.

In fact, you can get certified at a resort, and the training can be thorough and adequate.

And if you do get trained at a resort, you may find that the people are friendlier there.

I would recommend doing an e-learner course. The way this works is, you do the PADI online portion of the course at home at your leisure. You print out a certificate, take it with you to the resort. Then you do the pool and open water portions there at the resort.

It's a great time!

It may be a great time, but......

Upon completion of the e-learner course, the student will still be left with many unanswered questions.
They will then have to start phase 2 of their e-learning.......seeking all of those answers on Scuba Board. ;-)

 

[TSandM]

It's a better initial post, but some of us have issues with the idea that the training you received was thorough and adequate, and it's very hard for a new diving student to evaluate those things.