Should a Divemaster speak up?

[highdesert]

I am neither an instructor or DM, and have no wish to be one or the other. Just an average diver trying to stay alive and have some fun. But in diving or any other part of life where I have to interact with "professionals" in any discipline, I will go out of my way to avoid dealing with those who exhibit a "my way or no way" attitude. I will seek out someone who is interested in operating in a collaborative mode, and is willing to say there is always something they can learn from others. I have read this entire thread, and some responses here seem to fall outside of that, to say the least ...

 

[Dhboner]

Thanks for all the comments and "lively" discussion. There have been some excellent points and I'm glad I raised the issue here.

As it it turns out the instructor is moving on at the end of the month to work in the tropics for a year. I am going to suggest to my son that he "debrief" with the head instructor at the store and get advice to clarify exactly what his role is on a certification dive and how he should handle the situation should it arise in the future.

Bob

 

[Martini]

The bigger point I would make is why wouldn't the instructor debrief the DMs and DMCs on the side after the training session. This is SOP for all instructors with the shop I work with. Before debriefing our students after training dives we have a quick discussion to get feed back from all the staff and go over issues to address in the students debrief. Our DMs are valuable members of our team that provide extra eyes, hands, and experience and to not utilize those resources is just plain silly. It is ultimately the instructors call but I value the input of DMs or why bother to have them along.

 

[Al Mialkovsky]

Al Mialkovysky
Are you such a stud that you dont need any assistance? You can do it all on your own?

LOL well you've missed my points totally.

I have had great assistants over the years, many of which have become very good instructors. So no I don't do it alone and in another thread I talked about doing a checkout with only two students once and I took an assistant along with me even for that small group.

But yes I am a stud. Ask anyone

 

[Lead_carrier]

"If nothing is gained by that step, then ultimately you can go to the Quality Assurance dept of whatever agency you belong to. But I would caution against this unless the person is already a Dive Professional and is knowledgeable enough to know the standards which may have been violated.

What does being a dive professional have to do with knowing standards? There isn't a "magic" paragraph that becomes visable once you become professional. I have run into dm's and instructors that didn't seem to know didly about standards, let alone use them. And I have run into open water and advanced divers that knew standards inside out, they are public documents.

 

[hvulin]

it depends, none of use was perfect in our first dives but the instructor is the one to judge if someone just needs some practice or should give up....

 

[SubMariner]

Yes, I meant "confronted". Not "discussed". Obviously this now certified diver is a hazard to himself and others around him. It's not like they were doing pool sessions and the DM candidate disagreed with a technique that the instructor is teaching. They were in open water checkout dives and the instructor certified this guy who probably had no business getting certified. Time for discussion is over.

I stand corrected in this case about coaching the student diver because I didn't realize at first read that this was an OW checkout dive. By then it's too late to coach anybody. However, I've seen DM candidates assisting instructors by coaching and teaching student divers various skills and drills during the pool sessions.

With all due respect, since you are not a Dive Pro you may be unaware of how things work when you are on the other side of the dive slate. While you may well have "seen DM candidates assisting instructors by coaching and teaching student divers various skills and drills during the pool sessions" they are not doing it on their own. Standards dictate that they may only do this under the direction of the Instructor present at that session. They may not simply decide "hey, that guy isn't doing his fin pivot right... I guess I'll just swim over to him & tell him how to do it correctly."

Again, they may not remediate a student unless directed to do so by the Instructor. And when it comes to O/W they don't TEACH anything; that is the Instructor's job.

 

[SubMariner]

"If nothing is gained by that step, then ultimately you can go to the Quality Assurance dept of whatever agency you belong to. But I would caution against this unless the person is already a Dive Professional and is knowledgeable enough to know the standards which may have been violated.

What does being a dive professional have to do with knowing standards? There isn't a "magic" paragraph that becomes visable once you become professional. I have run into dm's and instructors that didn't seem to know didly about standards, let alone use them. And I have run into open water and advanced divers that knew standards inside out, they are public documents.

Since I didn't see any smilies associated with the above I will have to assume that you are being serious.

I don't know to which agency you belong, but PADI does not simply give out Instructor Manuals to anyone without a Pro rating. And those are where Standards are found; they are NOT "public documents".

The general diving public is exposed to agency standards through Instructors and Certified Assistants who utilize/display certain aspects of these Standards. And I can't think of an instance where one of them would be saying "oh, BTW we can only have X number of you divers to X Instructors unless we have a Certified Assistant, whereupon we can increase the number of divers to XX." Just what kind of reaction do you think you'd get from a student if you said that? So instead the student sees Dive Pros behaving in a particular way. They never ask WHY.

So I beg to differ. There are indeed SEVERAL "magic" paragraph that become visable [sic] once you become professional."

 

[fnfalman]

And when it comes to O/W they don't TEACH anything; that is the Instructor's job.[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]

And what are they suppose to do when the instructor didn't do his job? Are they suppose to say, "Oh gee whiz, I'm just a dumbass DM candidate who don't know nuthin' about no divin', so I'll just clam up and let an instructor pencil whipped an incompetent diver and give him a C-card."?

 

[fnfalman]

Since you're such a hotshot why not turn pro instead of just flapping your lips?

At best you have zero value when it comes to training as you have NOT been trained how to train.

Why should I turn pro? I hate dealing with people and I seriously doubt that your instructor/DM pay is anywhere close to my annual salary.

I may not have been trained on how to train a beginner, but I sure as heck can recognize an incompetently trained diver or even ill trained diver.