SSI Class - Failed

[yarik83]

great point there.

In a 4 season environment circumstances ARE different. I live in Florida (having moved from New Jersey) so in Florida it is scuba diving season probably 100% of the time.

I think we need to make a VERY clear distinction between LDS and independent scuba instructors. LDS already have a facility where they work so rent is paid for through student courses and equipment sales and repair. Independent instructors do not have a facility and I honestly do not see why they would need one. A group could go over course work in a park, in library, in someone's home and students would oblige gladly as long as they are taught. Pool sessions could be done in a community pool (ie YMCA or some sort of aquatic center). Locally to my area admission fee is $10/student which students pay. Lake dives are free so there is additional savings there. In not so many words independent instructors could hypothetically operate with no facilities that they own.

In a 4 season environment scuba shops make ends meet by multi tasking. Boyscout stuff this season, scuba stuff that season, hunting equipment other season, winter stuff during winter. I do not own a scuba business so I do not know all the intricacies but my instructor has 3 things under 1 roof and we live in climate where scuba is available at all times.

Another aspect of scuba business is that older crowd tends to come to dive shops or dive masters asking to organize dive trips. In most cases for the shop and or the dive master travelling accommodations and on site diving and lodging are factored into group's overall price... in other words they go for free. Every situation is different, of course but a business savvy person could figure out how to make money.

Finally (and not to disrespect any person on this board nor off this board). Let's be honest about something. This country rewards education level with earnings. This country also allows (and I do not want to use this ugly word to be honest) unskilled laborers to earn a living in many creative ways. Some flip burgers, others become tour guiders, others pressure wash homes and some become scuba instructors among other things. I honestly can not put a price to the latter. You have a group of people teaching other people to risk their lives in a safe manner with eventuality of out of this world entertainment, peace of mind and all that cool stuff. When it boils down to it, scuba instruction does not require college education and there is no "set" salary for such craft. With teachers for example... average salary is $40,000; with engineers average salary is $70,000. Since many scuba instructors are self employed there are virtually no laws that govern how much they should be getting which brings me to the final word of the day....

As a scuba instructor one should not look at their income as some sort of loss but rather a gain. You need to structure your finances around absolute minimum that you can earn and anything extra gets set aside as an investment or something of that sort. If you were living in a dive all year environment then you could potentially make about $35,000-$40,000 easy and that is very good considering all things said. If you live in middle of nowhere and you are a scuba instructor where diving is only 3 months out of the year and you are struggling to make ends meet... pack up and move. My dive shop always has people from up north coming down for a couple of years until they get back on their feet and move back or move further south. You should be willing to move where business is and not expect business to come to you. Understanding that self net worth is directly proportionate to amount of effort you put into it is what makes this country unique. You can be somebody if you put your mind to it.

 

[boulderjohn]

Teaching is one thing. Learning is another. The ability of a student to learn, to develop, to 'make the grade' is not dictated by the capability of the teacher.

That line of thought has been blown out of the water by research conducted in the last two decades. All the research--let me repeat--ALL THE RESEARCH--on this topic conducted during the the last two decades indicates that teacher instructional skill is the primary factor in student achievement. Student ability and motivation are certainly factors, but a skilled teacher can overcome those factors to a remarkable degree. One study showed that differences in teacher performance at the elementary level can make the difference between a student going to college and a student dropping out of high school.

I was on the research team that studied the differences between a group of teachers whose students had remarkably low scores on an achievement test and a group of teachers whose students had remarkably high scores on the same test in the same schools. (Neither group knew we were aware of their performance levels.) We surveyed their opinions on instructional theory. In the case of the high achievers, 100% of them said that a truly skilled instructor can potentially bring success to all students, and it was their duty to try to do so. In the case of the low achievers, 100% said that "the ability of a student to learn, to develop, to 'make the grade' is not dictated by the capability of the teacher."

In the case of this thread.... the instructor cut the class (offered extension) AT AN EARLY STAGE. Doesn't that agree with your statement? The instructor DIDN'T wait until the last minute, before failing the class... he made his decision early... at the mid-point in training.

That is simply not true. There are three distinct and different phases of instruction: academic, pool, and OW. The students paid for the first two phases--the OW was additional. They were not told they had failed until the phases they had paid for were over.

Moreover, they were told they had failed after they had not only completed all required skills, they had also completed additional and more difficult skills that were added to the program by the instructor. I have said this several times, but students are not supposed to progress through skills until they have been judged by the instructor to have been proficient in the skills they have already completed. The instructor is not supposed to move on to the next skill if they have not been successful on previous skills. Thus, according to standards, a student who has completed all skills has, by definition, passed the course. If students were not successful on the skills, the instructor not only had no business completing the course, he especially had no business adding additional skills that are not part of the requirements.

 

[mdax]

So, do you think divers should be shopping around for the highest price in order to get the best/

This sounds like a rip-off LDS. Unfortunately those kind of shops exist.

In addition to other suggestions, I suggest you pursue a charge back through your credit card company but that may be a long shot.

I'm suggesting that shopping based on price as THE major factor in dive training is a mistake. I pursue dive training like shooting schools and wall climbing training where the factor of greatest weight is quality instruction, as my life depends on my mastery of skills.
I've found that the best instructors are more expensive than others. I believe many people do just as the OP, they shop based only on price, purchase everything over the internet and end up with lackluster results. For an activity where dying is a real possibility if you screw up skills or have major equipment failure this path is not one I'd recommend.
The shops I associate with are certainly not ripping people off, they are charging fair prices for quality instruction and selling high quality scuba gear. I'm probably more sensitive to the cheap path as cave diving has much smaller margins for error, however you can die in ow pretty easy also.

 

[boulderjohn]

I would like to clarify my own processes for instruction and pay.

With OW instruction, the shop has learned over decades of instruction how much time students usually need to complete the CW work. That is what is scheduled. Some students get it earlier than others, but the overwhelming majority complete the pool work in that time. The rare students who need more time are given it free of charge--it is rare, it usually requires minimal extra time, and the good will that ensues is believed to be worth it. In my 8 years as a professional, I have known of only two students who needed extensive extra work. Both were teens whose mother signed them up for classes without mentioning that they were autistic. The shop did not have a policy in place to deal with that, so the shop ate the extra cost. In discussing this event with PADI, they felt there was no harm in having a policy requiring payment for such additional sessions, provided that the policy was made clear before the student signs up for the class.

The length of time to meet performance requirements in technical diving is much harder to predict. This spring I set up a new technical diving program for a shop that had never had it before. Unfortunately, I was cut down by an accident, so it cannot be started until my bones are all back in working order. When it starts, the financial rules will be quite clear. Passing the course requires completion of all standards. The course fee guarantees a specified range of instructional contact in the classroom, the pool, and in open water. Students are expected to need additional practice beyond that, which can be accomplished by attending pool practice sessions at $X, requesting additional instructor pool sessions at $X, tagging along on OW dives for the experiences and practice at normal costs for diving, etc. I am champing at the bit to see how well the system works, but I am still at least two months away from even beginning the program.

 

[Mike]

That line of thought has been blown out of the water by research conducted in the last two decades. All the research--let me repeat--ALL THE RESEARCH--on this topic conducted during the the last two decades indicates that teacher instructional skill is the primary factor in student achievement. Student ability and motivation are certainly factors, but a skilled teacher can overcome those factors to a remarkable degree. One study showed that differences in teacher performance at the elementary level can make the difference between a student going to college and a student dropping out of high school.

I was on the research team that studied the differences between a group of teachers whose students had remarkably low scores on an achievement test and a group of teachers whose students had remarkably high scores on the same test in the same schools. (Neither group knew we were aware of their performance levels.) We surveyed their opinions on instructional theory. In the case of the high achievers, 100% of them said that a truly skilled instructor can potentially bring success to all students, and it was their duty to try to do so. In the case of the low achievers, 100% said that "the ability of a student to learn, to develop, to 'make the grade' is not dictated by the capability of the teacher."

So let me get this straight - if you put a mix of say 30 students with a good quality lets say English teacher, all 30 of the students will get a A in that English class? Nobody will fail, nobody will get below an A, or does this only apply to scuba diving?

If that's the case it sounds like it's time to start paying all teachers based on the grades of their students. I'm sure that will go over like a fart in church with all their unions. Won't be a need for tenure either. I'm liking this better already!

 

[tridacna]

Wow. Time to unsubscribe from this mud slinging BS. We've just descended to unions, tenure and teachers.

 

[boulderjohn]

So let me get this straight - if you put a mix of say 30 students with a good quality lets say English teacher, all 30 of the students will get a A in that English class? Nobody will fail, nobody will get below an A, or does this only apply to scuba diving?

If that's the case it sounds like it's time to start paying all teachers based on the grades of their students. I'm sure that will go over like a fart in church with all their unions. Won't be a need for tenure either. I'm liking this better already!

Well, it would take a pretty long essay to try to explain this to you, and it is a bit off topic. I will try to help bring you to something of a glimmer of understanding.

In many and perhaps cases, grades are meaningless. The first research study that showed that the same student performance can get a failing grade from one teacher and an A from another teacher was performed in 1920, if I recall correctly. That is why I used objective performance measures that were independent of individual teacher judgment in my post. You apparently missed that.

But the reality is that you are not far off in your description of results.

Here are some examples from my own experience as an education administrator:

• A high school had all its sophomores take the same independently scored writing achievement test. Of its 8 sophomore teachers, 4 had over 80% of their students scored at the top level on a 4 point scale, and 4 had fewer than 20% of its students reach as high as the 3rd scoring level, with none in the top.
• A very low income, high minority enrollment school in the Denver area is on academic watch because of the past academic failure of its students. The school does not use traditional grades for its students but instead assigns them individual grade levels on individual subjects according to independent testing based on state standards. A teacher new to the school this year had every one of her students increase at least two grade levels during this past year--nothing remotely close to that had ever happened there before.
• A department in a school had all teachers use the same multiple choice test after a unit of study. One teacher's worst performing students got a higher raw score than the highest performing student of another teacher--by far. That other teacher had only a small percentage of the class reach higher than the law of averages. Those results were invisible on the report card because the teachers were required to curve the scores. The students in the low performing teacher's class who got just above the law of averages got A's, much higher than the students in the other class who outperformed them by a mile. In fact, some of the high performing teachers students got failing scores, even though their raw scores were twice as high as the students who got A's from the other teacher.

 

[al248005]

Really??? Why do we have to go off subject and start talking about tenure, unions, and teachers....If you want to start on that topic don't hijack this thread. Go on into the Non-diving related issues forum and post it there.

 

[bilsant]

Going back to the original poster's complaint, I'd like to see if we can somehow benchmark what reasonable expectations should be.

How many SSI, PADI, or NAUI instructors reading this thread have flunked 7 OW students in one class after passing the written exam but before the OW dive?

How many have flunked 7 OW students under the same circumstances over a one year period?

Five years?

Their careers?

I'd really like to hear some instructors' responses.

 

[japan-diver]

I am a full time instructor and have been for 17 years and have certifed 1000's of divers. I have had quite a few over the years need a bit of extra time to get ready for OW - the most I have ever had in one class was a group of about 10 clients that we had 2 instructors working with and 1/2 of them had to do an extra day of confined water to get ready for OW and 2 never did get certified after numerous attempts in confined and . Now it was very evident that there were problems here with a few not getting their heads under water and repeatedly standing up in the shallow end when just breathing on the reg. This would be my 'worst" class I have ever taught or seen in almost 20 years of working at and running some very busy dive shops. To get 7 "failures" in one class of 7 would be very rare.