A deep systemic problem with diver ed?

[Laser]

Popeye once bubbled...


How many divers died in 1970?

About 100.

1980?

About 100.

'90?

about 100.

Anyone wanna take a stab at 2000?

I think that skill levels today are more a reflection on society in general, like divorce and crime rates.

Spousal pressure is a biggie.

I tell people who obviously don't wanna dive, that they shouldn't, and I see a few.

It's all about perception, the numbers that is.

Drunk drivers kill as many as handguns in this country every year.

If your teenager asked you for a .357 on Friday night, you'd scoff.

But you gladly hand him the car keys...

Thirty years ago, if you wanted to dive, it was a very serious decision.

For me, in 1997, it was $150 bucks and a weekend.

I can drink $150 bucks in an evening.

It's just not the same investment it once was.

Like flying or skydiving or anything (or glass blowing or wine tasting), the venue for training is there.

Some will take it more seriously than others.

I have 4 close freinds that were certified in their early 20's, and I waited till my late thirties.

They browbeat me into getting certified so we could go to someplace called "Bonaire" (which we never did).

These guys have been diving two decades, and only one of the four has over 100 dives (barely).

After six months or a year out of the water, what would we expect their proficiency to be?

(hint: reef rototilling)

I've been diving less than six years, and I'll break 900 dives in the next few weeks.

I don't have a lotta skills deficiency.



Popeye: I don't try to "train away" Darwin, I train 'em FOR Murphy

Peace,
Neil

Most excellent!

Me and Murph are old pals.

I know a lotta good instructors.

I don't know any bad ones.

I've taken 16 or 17 classes from 4 agencies, never had a complaint.

What you're sposta learn is in the book.

Some people are interested in that, some ain't.

But the fact that the industry cranks out divers the way it does, makes every aspect of diving less expensive and more accessible than it ever was, so I don't see a change in this trend coming anytime soon. [/QUOTE]

People learn what they want to learn. Weekend Sally can have the greatest instructor in the world but she only learns what she wants. Popeye learns a massive amount from the same instructor. Where do ya draw the line?

 

[double125's]

One of my high school teachers had a saying on her door "free knowledge, bring your own container"

When you take a scuba course you pay for knowledge and the instructer shows up empty handed.

 

[MikeFerrara]

This thread has taken an interesting turn. Well, after next month I won't have any connection (not much anyway) with the industry so yall can choose your own poison but...

I see lots of divers with zero skills. If their mask was knocked off or if they have a free flow at depth my money says the'll drown or die trying to ascend at the speed of light. What do ya know, I see divers hauled off in ambulances every year because of just such panick episodes.

I think that's wrong and the vast majority of those can be easily avoided. Before genesis accuses me of being a comunist, I don't want the government to fix it. I want the instructors and the divers to fix it. If they won't I want the agency to fix it.

And I want Genesis and Popeye to become instructors so they can own part of it.

Did you guys read my account of my wifes OW class? None of those diver could pass a skills assesment in fron of any descent instructor. That guy did loose at least one student. I guess it wasn't even a blip in the statistics. Did the standards tell him to teach that way? No. However shops hire him and the agency lets him remain an instructor.

Did you guys realize that you can become a recreational diving instructor with only one dive below 60 ft and then teach to 100 ft.

Did you realize that the same instructor can take a student he certified while kneeling on the platform in OW dive 4 to 100 ft for his AOW deep dive on his very next dive. Both the instructor and the student can hit 100 ft for the very first time together.

Tell me again that the standards are ok please. And since none of the classes that even the instructor took teaches little things like gas management neither will have a clue.

Just what do you guys have against insisting that instructors ensure student mastery of skills as the standards already require? If you tell me that the majority of instructors are doing that I for one won't believe it because I get students all the time for advanced classes, nitrox classes and advanced nitrox classes that I can't take away from the platform until I redo most of the OW course with them.
I get divemasters who want to work classes that can't replace and clear their mask in a pool without sitting on the bottom.
I get instructors with MSDT tickets who can't brief a confined water skill because their no comfortable talking in front of people. How did they get the card. They clearly have no teaching experience.

And tell me how some one who is any where near competant can be injured because of panicking over a silly free flow at 100 ft.

 

[MikeFerrara]

Laser once bubbled...



People learn what they want to learn. Weekend Sally can have the greatest instructor in the world but she only learns what she wants. Popeye learns a massive amount from the same instructor. Where do ya draw the line?

Thats an easy one. When the student displays mastery of the required skills at a minimum you turn them loose. The word mastery BTW is defined in the PADI standards for the instructors. Wether the standards are adequate can of course be argued but in most cases you needen't go that far because the intent of the standards are so often not met.

 

[Laser]

I feel for ya Mike. I took a newly certified diver to 40ft last week with my buddy ( we thought we were being nice ) and I ended up dragging him up, while he did.....nothing. Absolutely nothing. Didn't touch the BC, didn't do anything. THe reason I was dragging him up was that I signalled up because he was raking the bottom so bad and I was uncomfortable with him at that depth, but he did nothing. I had to drag him up. When we got to the surface, he was wondering what I wanted!! **** it. I'll work on my own diving. I was new once and was a pain to someone and I appreciate their patience, but I have none. I don't want the responsibility.

 

[MikeFerrara]

Laser once bubbled...
I feel for ya Mike. I took a newly certified diver to 40ft last week with my buddy ( we thought we were being nice ) and I ended up dragging him up, while he did.....nothing. Absolutely nothing. Didn't touch the BC, didn't do anything. THe reason I was dragging him up was that I signalled up because he was raking the bottom so bad and I was uncomfortable with him at that depth, but he did nothing. I had to drag him up. When we got to the surface, he was wondering what I wanted!! **** it. I'll work on my own diving. I was new once and was a pain to someone and I appreciate their patience, but I have none. I don't want the responsibility.

And some instructor gave the guy a card. I wonder on what basis the instructor justified it. I guess the class was out of time. Or maybe it was one of those two day certification guaranteed classes. The whole thing is an absolute joke.

 

[Butch103]

......I was always dead set on the certifying agency (s) rewuirements really had nothing to do with the end result..the student...however I have changed that thought.

The relaxed standards coming down from the agencies is the major problem. If the new instructors cannot dive and do not have the skills and/or knowledge, what can they teach their students? ZIP!!!!! Just more bad habits.

The solution?? Who has one?

I am believing more and more that their has to be an independant body out their that certifies the instructors. Than they choose the ceritfying agency that they want to "work" for.

The same indendant agency than picks and chooses blndly students from the instructor and runs that student thru the OW skills again.

Still leaves some room for bad divers and instructors to slip thru, but would it help?

 

[Genesis]

The solution?? Who has one?

I am believing more and more that their has to be an independant body out their that certifies the instructors. Than they choose the ceritfying agency that they want to "work" for.

The same indendant agency than picks and chooses blndly students from the instructor and runs that student thru the OW skills again.

Still leaves some room for bad divers and instructors to slip thru, but would it help?

That won't do it.

The question you have to ask is, what are you after?

What is a C-card? What is it for?

Is it for the diver (personally), or is it what people claim - a "certification"?

Its NOT a "license."

PADI and others have tried over the years to paint the card as a "certification" - a step between a "certificate of completion" and a "license." (The former is something nobody other than you would typically see.)

Of course they've done this for pecuniary interest - nobody would BUY such a card if it wasn't able to be flashed around as a credential!

But have we really served anyone with such a "credential" system? No. Not any more than we have with a "driver license" system, which is no such thing.

Think about it folks - when was the last time you were asked for your driver license for a purpose related to operating a motor vehicle - in any way? Its been more than 10 years since I've been asked for mine (the last time I was stopped for a traffic violation.)

Yet in that same 10 years I've been asked for my "driver license" literally hundreds of times for purposes that have nothing to do with its putative claimed purpose.

A "driver license" is not really a driver license at all. Its a generic ID card that is only tangentally-related to operating a motor vehicle on the highway. In fact, I could have driven for the last 10 years without one, and would have never been caught!

So what are we after, really, here?

Is the goal to reduce the fatality/injury rate in diving? Why? Is it unacceptably high now? I would argue that it is remarkably low; less than 1/4 of the rate for operating a motor vehicle in terms of deaths, and well under that for injuries.

Or is the goal to find some way to move beyond the "certification" phase to a "licensure" phase?

Hmmmmmmmmmmmm?

I am personally sick and tired of all the so-called "licenses" that have nothing to do with what they're really claimed to be. The Driver License is just the most blatently obvious of the bunch, but hardly the only one.

I say that we should get the govenrment the hell out of our lives, not invite it in. IMHO the entire "certification" scam needs to end - right now. The quasi-governmental regime that PADI, SSI and others have managed to shove down diver's throats with their "C-card madness", imposed by fiat via a de-facto regulatory structure through the insurance companies and dive shops, is a sham at best and a fraud at worst - if you accept the "dire situation" with diver skills.

The solution?

Get rid of the certifying agencies by devaluing the C-card. You want gas? Here's a tank - pay me. You want gear? Pay me. You want instruction? Cool - pay me.

But to claim that you "must" have some piece of plastic from some agency to get any of the above?

Bite me.

 

[MikeFerrara]

I was asked for my drivers license the last time I was pulled over by a police officer. I got the distinct impression that if I didn't have a valid license he wasn't going to let me drive that car any more. He was in a bad mood and I think he may have even locked me up.

A diving certification is a certificate of training completion for the most part. In most countries and areas there isn't a law that says you need one to dive. Now, I don't care if some one dives without training but they aren't comming with me and I wouldn't let them dive off my boat if I had one and I sure won't let them use my equipment. For many dives/boats the certification is a minimum and no guarantee that you'll be allowed to participate. Some of the great lakes wrecks we dive you won't get on regardless of the card you hold unless the oporator has some additional reason to think you're ok. He's protecting himself as much as anyone. Aside from liability, who wants dead people laying around on the deck everytime you pull into the harbor? Who wants to risk themselves or any one else in rescue/recovery oporations?

When I accept a student for a class the card they show as proof of prerequisit training just gets them to the paperwork. Before we start any real training I need to see them in the water. If I don't think their ready for the training they're wanting, we stop there until things are brought up to speed.

If a diver has the prerequisit skill and experience but no card there is often a way to credit the experience. The card only matters in the shop to get things rolling.

When we issue a certificate of training for an OW class it says that the diver has been trained in certain things and that he met some level of proficiency. The diver certainly thinks they're ready to go diving when they get the card. I often see that this isn't the case at all. On average, lately Ive beed doing 2 or 3 dives with a perspective AOW student before we can even begin the AOW training. I've had nitrox students that already held AOW cards that I wouldn't take away from the platform because they couldn't do a controled descent and ascent without crashing into the bottom. The first thing I ask a diver to do is to descent to 10 ft and stop. Then when signaled to continue down to just above the platform and stop without hitting it. They can't do it. Sorry but if they can't do that I won't even take them diving nevermind trying to teach them some thing more advanced. What's the sense in having a student crawl through a nav course silting the place up and being to preoccupied to have a clue where there buddy is or if they even have one?

One of the things I'll do while a diver is navigating with a compass is ask their buddy to stop. How often do you think they notice as apposed to just swimming off without them? How long do you think it takes them to notice? Some will swim all the way to the surface and not even notice that the bottom is gone. These things are the norm not the acception. After they swim off without their buddy I like to ask them to share air with their buddy. You should see the look on their faces when there isn't anyone there. I'm not even taking AOW students off the street now unless they agree to pay for remediation before we start. I just have too much time in it.


The same happens with rescue classes. How can I teach a diver to lift another diver off the bottom if they can't maintain control lifting theself off the bottom? You should see some of the circular rope searches we've done before I started holding divers back. How can you teach some one to recognize signs of stress in their buddy when they're so busy just surviving they can't begin to pay close attention to anyone else?

Advanced Nitrox? That's a joke! I get calls "I'm a divemaster. I want to deco dive" That's great but the whole thing ends when they can't replace a mask without a firm grasp on the bottom or bouncing all over from bottom to surface.

 

[Walter]

Genesis,

Legally there's nothing wrong with your proposal. Liability is another issue. Any dive shop can sell air to anyone (c-card or not) and any charter operator can take anyone diving (c-card or not). If someone is killed or injured, the shop or charter that did not verify training has opened themselves up to major liability issues.

I don't understand what drivers licenses have to do with this issue, but you are clearly passionate about them.

You can cut up all your c-cards and tell all the agencies to take a short walk, but don't expect many to fill your tanks or take you on their boats. Don't expect many other divers to cut their cards to join you in the process.

Evidence of training is a good thing, in my opinion. I merely wish it meant more than it does.