Becoming an Instructor

[The Chairman]

I'd like you to make a substantive post regarding the items addressed earlier.

So, you DO want a sermon?

Here's my current situation. I am sorta kinda maybe playing hooky this weekend... you know: actually trying to dive with two students of mine here in Orlando rather than sit 24/7 on ScubaBoard. I grew up here, so when I visit I have a litany, an s-load and a plethora even. of acquaintances and great friends that expect me to spend time with them and resent when I pop on to my laptop for even a brief look see, to answer what I can and deal with the day to day running of ScubaBoard. You might see that as irresponsible that I choose to answer only a few points and move on... but that's all you're going to get.

I certainly don't mind that you don't believe me or accept my words of jaded wisdom. I'm not in your flippers and I don't want to be. The only person with skin in your game is you. Do what you want. Do what you decide is best. You might bull blindly through the quickest/cheapest course and perhaps when I see you in the water I'll think kind thoughts about you and your students. Perhaps not. What do you really care? But then you might run into the same frustrations that many, many instructors who are ill prepared to really deal with student issues, benign and critical and simply give up teaching.

If anything, I've made you stop and think. I don't mind that I've pissed a few people off with my ideology about teaching. There are different approaches to learning how to teach and I like that. So, my best friend @Moose is finally up, it's freezing cold outside and we're going to go to breakfast. Pip, pip, cheerio, do what you want and carry on. I'm off to have some fun today, even if I don't get to dive. Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

 

[Caveeagle]

I just read through this thread and found much of it useful and interesting. I suspect (or hope) the op just did a poor job of laying out the question.

I suspect (like many of us), the op is interested in teaching but finds the entire landscape confusing and inconsistent. It also seems like it would be easy to choose a path that would be highly inefficient, wasting both time and money.

Some have called out instructors with poor methods, motivations and skills. But (without agency bashing) ...what about cert agencies who are more about profits than creating true value for both instructors and students?

Seems like the op should try to be a little more transparent with context, but... maybe we could just assume we are asking for the most "efficient" path with the given experience and goals in mind.

*also, I would like to challenge the whole "You get what you pay for" montra. In our schools system, there is very little correlation between $ spent and quality of education. I really doubt you could prove any direct correlation between cost of scuba instruction and overall quality of the end product.

It believe the op has a legitimate question. Just worded poorly, and lacking context.

 

[The Chairman]

The rapidity with which you are taught to instruct a curriculum may not have a significant bearing on the ethos of diving you attempt to impart on your students.

This statement makes no sense. Students learn best by mimicking, right? An instructor with poor trim and buoyancy control can't hope to teach it, since the student has no credible reference to imitate. They will probably look just like their instructor and if they become an instructor, they will pass that on to their students as well. It's the circle of mediocrity or the circle of excellence. Choose well.

When you are in an IDC, you are learning how teach. Just like an OW student, you will imitate how your instructors do it. My IDC was an exceptionally tough one. Two candidates and up to 30 instructor trainers in a session, all hoping to impress the course director with their devastating insights. It was very brutal. I cried twice. If it weren't for mentors like @MB I would not have made it through. In that IDC I was made aware of several teaching styles. Many of which I learned how NOT to do it and others, like @MB, I had a credible reference to imitate. The man is a professor and the head of the Special Education department. Words fail to describe him, but I would definitely ascribe adjectives like innovative, insightful, kind, intelligent and (most importantly) gentle to his method. I can ascribe most of my teaching methodologies, even those I developed after that IDC, to him.

So how could you learn to be careful and methodical when you're looking for an instructor trainer that is neither of these? You can't imitate what you haven't experienced. If you learn from an impatient instructor instructor, likely as not, you'll be an impatient instructor. If you learn from a corner cutting instructor trainer, odds are that you'll cut corners too. In learning how to teach, you're going to imitate the way you were taught. It's hard to pick a pear from a thistle. It's the circle of mediocrity or the circle of excellence. Choose well.

FWIW, i was looking to become an instructor because I didn't like the instructors I had seen and even been taught by. Many of the IDCs I talked to seemed to be blowhards, FIGJAMs or were way out of my budget. I had actually dove with Mike (MB) and he gave me a few suggestions and indicated he thought I should be an instructor. I liked his approach and how he was like a graceful manatee in the water, so I chose him. It wasn't about the agency. It was about choosing the right instructor trainer for me. I guess I'm kinda like Mike's "mini me" and I'm dedicated to turning out divers who are "mini NetDocs". Ask any of my students.

 

[Bob DBF]

I say a 2-year timescale because that's (I believe?) the approximate average retention for active-status instructors.

2 years is also sufficient timescale to enable existing CDs to raise their game and develop the skills needed to teach/demonstrate refined fundamentals (many don't have that skillset... which is joke). The same applies to instructors routinely teaching DM courses.

It'd also serve to weed out those CDs who couldn't, or wouldn't, make the quality change.

Add an expiration date to all professional certs, and I could see it working. Having a re-certification on a regular basis, say 4 or 5 years, is a standard practice in most disciplines and would insure the quality and upgrade those that stay in the business over those 2 years you speak of.



Bob

 

[boulderjohn]

Change (quality management) need only be introduced at the level of Instructor Examination (IE). A half-day addition to assess fundamental-type diving skill competency. Similar to a 'lite' GUE Fundies format assessment.

I like this idea.

A serious problem with the IE system, at least with the PADI system I know, is it begins with the assumption that the instructor candidate already has good diving skills. Although the candidate can indeed fail the exam by showing poor diving skills, the poorly skilled candidate is on safe ground, because there is little opportunity to display those poor general diving skills.

Within the PADI system, a good sign of this assumption is that a brand new instructor is automatically qualified to teach the Peak Performance Buoyancy specialty course, even though he or she has never had to show any real buoyancy skills. I have heard stories of candidates going to the IE praying that they don't get asked to demonstrate the hover for fear that their inability to do it at the OW level, not even the OW instructor demonstration level, would be revealed.

As many of you know, I am a fervid supporter of teaching OW skills while students are neutrally buoyant and in horizontal trim. I regularly argue against instructors who thoroughly overweight students and teach them on their knees, and I think one reason is that they are not sure they can do the skills that way themselves. I was recently teaching a pool session while sharing the pool with other classes, and I watched a smallish, thin instructor walk by in his 3mm wet suit. I quickly counted the weight on his belt and guessed he was overweighted by 12-16 pounds. He would have a hard time demonstrating effective neutral buoyancy skills with that much excess weight.

If you saw the original article in the PADI professional journal on neutral buoyancy instruction a few years ago, you saw a picture of me demonstrating the last seconds of the no mask swim/mask replacement exercise. When I teach it, I have the students work in buddy teams, with one buddy leading the maskless diver and then holding onto the buddy's BCD while the mask is being replaced in mid water to prevent the buddy from having an unexpected ascent. My students have no trouble doing this, with both divers completing the skill in mid water. When I posed for the picture, I had to hover motionless in place, holding my hands to the mask as if clearing it, while the photographer lined up and took the picture. My buddy in the picture, another instructor, was unable to do that, and so he is pictured on the bottom while holding my BCD.

The revised PADI OW course now emphasizes both buoyancy and trim to a far, far greater degree than it used to, so I see no reason that there should not be a requirement that instructor candidates demonstrate those skills before being allowed to teach.

 

[dumpsterDiver]

Wow, I don't remember being taught or learning ANYTHING about diving skills or ANY physics or dive science or anything like that in a PADI IDC. It was all trivial review of 8th grade level material. In fact, some of the science they taught us from the PADI materials was WRONG and even on the final exam, at least one multiple choice question was wrong because (apparently) PADI did not understand physics. Even the IE examiners were unable to comprehend the error in the test when I presented them with proof of it.

Seriously, they are now teaching buoyancy control in an IDC and assessing that in a IE? The only thing I remember from the IDC was how to construct lectures, how to pass the IE and a bunch of stuff about following the standards and procedures and also to call the dive center a dive "store" not a "shop" because that connotes a dirty, rough facility. And of course, to try avoid talking openly about the dangers or potential negatives of diving.

 

[boulderjohn]

Seriously, they are now teaching buoyancy control in an IDC and assessing that in a IE?

If you are responding to my post, you misread it. I did not say those things are required in an IDC. I said I think they should be required in an IDC. Instructor currently are not formally assessed on their overall diving skills, although they can fail the IE if they happen to screw up royally while demonstrating a skill.

 

[Michael Guerrero]

This statement makes no sense.

I think the statement makes perfect sense. You could have learned to dive in a very slow, methodical, and skill-refining approach. You could have been exposed to excellent instructors along the way as you got certified to higher and higher levels of diving. You could have been introduced to highly effective teaching methods because your instructors used those teaching methods to instruct you and help you develop a high level of skill and deeper knowledge than many instructors impart. Perhaps you are even a teaching/training professional outside of diving and so you have a sound understanding of what is involved in teaching/training people on new tasks. Because you're a passionate diver, and passionate about teaching, you want to bring your professional knowledge to bear on your hobby.

I'm not talking about me necessarily, just saying that it could be the case. But I think you are unable to accept that someone who matches the description above in pursuit of their dive training could even consider a quick/cheap course to become an instructor because that would seem to violate the value they put in methodical and thorough instruction. However, I don't see these as antithetical at all. Certification agencies have a relatively fixed, modular curriculum for instructors to follow. The instructor is potentially much more qualified, from a diving perspective, than the material she is instructing (e.g., a technical diver teaching an OW class). I don't see why this person should be considered inferior because she pursued a cost effective, time efficient approach that met the standards of the agency that certified her.

Students learn best by mimicking, right? An instructor with poor trim and buoyancy control can't hope to teach it, since the student has no credible reference to imitate. They will probably look just like their instructor and if they become an instructor, they will pass that on to their students as well. It's the circle of mediocrity or the circle of excellence. Choose well.

So...this is a skills issue, and it seems like you're saying all an instructor needs is to have good trim to teach a student good trim because a student learns best by mimicry. That would mean that teaching methodology is irrelevant for this (and potentially other) skill(s). Is that what you're saying?

When you are in an IDC, you are learning how teach. Just like an OW student, you will imitate how your instructors do it.

I think you're making a LOT of assumptions with this paragraph. What if an instructor candidate determines that their IT is not that good. They are potentially qualified to make that determination having seen many other instructors from different agencies in the past, both as part of their personal dive training and during recreational diving. Obviously an instructor candidate that thinks their IT uses inferior methods isn't going to mimic those techniques. I wouldn't see anything wrong an instructor candidate continuing on through the course, meeting agency standards, and becoming a certified instructor though. They could walk away from the IDC saying, "I now understand the philosophy and methodology used by my agency in certifying divers and I understand where I can use my own teaching methods to improve outcomes, namely the skill and knowledge of the divers I certify."

I also don't think you're giving people enough credit for being able to think for themselves. You assume that just because someone has an impatient instructor they will become one too. That doesn't make any sense to me. If you're an impatient person, teaching...anything...is probably not the right job for you. If scuba is your hobby and you are considering teaching it to others, but know that you're really impatient, then I don't know how you would arrive at a decision where actually becoming an instructor made sense. It is almost as though you are saying that people are so impressionable, and so zeroed in on a single source for all their information and knowledge, that they will invariably become an example of that source. This certainly could be (and probably is) the case for many. But it isn't preordained, and isn't the case for all--just look at the numbers of people coming to Scubaboard to ask questions and get information. For instructors, a little scrolling back through threads and you see many, many instructors indicate that they teach above the minimum standards. So clearly, people considering becoming instructors can think for themselves and do not have to perpetuate the things they saw as negative in their training.

 

[tbone1004]

@Michael Guerrero why are you being so secretive about why you're asking this question? Based on what you surmised above, that person should ask the good instructors that they had what they would do.

This is what really gets me about this line of questioning and you being so deceptive about this subject.. Why do you think there is a separation between finding the best instructor to teach you how to dive, and finding the best course director to teach you how to be a dive instructor? If you are serious about wanting to be an instructor, you will interview courses directors the same way you would interview an instructor for any other course. By asking what the fastest/cheapest ITC is because you think you're ready, how can you justify not being the fastest/cheapest option for students? Or do you want to be the fastest/cheapest option? If you do, that's fine, I disagree with it, but that's your prerogative not mine. Wouldn't it be a bit hypocritical to have chased the fastest/cheapest route to become an instructor but then tell your students not to do that?

 

[Hank49]

When you are in an IDC, you are learning how teach. .

I don't totally agree with this. You're learning to follow the structured program that each agency has developed. Teachers, or coaches, or managers, develop their own "style" based on their personality once they get their own team or students.
That style becomes evident as students begin to ask questions, or have different needs or weaknesses.
Making a student cry....doesn't sound good. Sorry you had to deal with THAT ****. Maybe the guy was a SEAL wanna be?