Continuing Ed. or just paying to dive..

[A Plante]

Ponder this, Almost 30 years ago when I joined diving it was more like joining a club, not everyone could do it or would do it. The rigors of the training pushed most away. The time, cost and commitment needed to join the culb was significant and considered a right of passage. Those of us who took up the challenge earned entry into this club, the cost was expensive by 70 standards,($185.00),the hours dedicated were numerous (usally took a month or longer to meet the requirements) and the standards were set pretty high, not everyone passed the first time around, they had to go to remediation, but when you passsed you accomplished something speical which bonded you to the sport. Yes, it was a basic open water but you learned (not mastered) most everything needed to dive with confidence and safety. Things like, naviagtion, emrgency procedures, swift current (drifting), Deep Diving, equipment operation, buddying, shore and boat operations, night diving, BC operations, (which was realatively new) weighting and other aspects were all part. Lots of swimming with and without gear, lots of classroom work, hot topics, discussions,and lesson learned. This was the path you took to be able to call yourself a sport scuba diver. Once you passed the course you were able to dive to the sport limit (130'), with confidence knowledge and safety. Albeit novices, we had a pretty good grasp on what was needed and by the time you had your card you already had 8-10 dives or more under your belt. My point is that basics are basics they should never change, Yes expand to encompass technology, new discoveries and such , but keep the rudimentary elements and high standards the same. When you retard those requirements in favor of economic pressure, convience and growth you retard your ability to be a safe and confident diver which is an injustice to the sport, raises the liability and will prompt unnecessary regulatory change. Weak Divers kill the sport. Look new school, old school this debate will endure, the issue is education, advanced or continuing is always good thing and sorely neeed with changing technology BUT only if it builds on an already strong base. I have observed several classes, read numerous boards posting, read advertisments and went to shops, I don't see a strong base being developed, all I see is a fast food approach. A debate has been, a strong demanding basic course would be time and cost prohibitive retricting growth, "too bad that is the right of passage in to this club" If the desire is there, then arrangemnts will be made for time and money, it has happend time and time again, $400.00 for an xbox or $600.00 for a good certifcation course your choice. Remember not everyone can SCUBA or should SCUBA

 

[Thalassamania]

Yes indeed, listen to Gunny!

 

[A Plante]

Seeing if I can get this old pic of my certification Dive from 1977 to work,

 

[RayJayJr]

I didn't say anything about a "course description". I was talking about course standards. the satandards are written by the agency and define everything regarding the course from what an instructor must to to be qualified to teach the course to what must be taught in the course and the course limits. In the case of PADI courses, Lecture outlines and a list of performance requirements for each dive are also included.

If an instructor teaches something other that what is defined in the standards then he's teaching a different course. Your instructor might teach a great wreck diving class and I have no way of knowing one way or the other. PADI however, has designed a wreck diving course that I don't think much of.

Maybe your instructor has overhead training but I can tell you for a fact that there are a lot of PADI wreck diving instructors who don't have any because PADI doesn't require it.

I still am not really sure why you've lumped the wreck class into that category, all the information I posted regarding activities for the wreck course I've extracted right from the PADI wreck diving book, copyright 2003, ISBN: 1-878663-20-8. I checked with the dive shop and it was made clear that the every student is expected to be able to perform the activities in the book reasonably well, according to STANDARDS which are set by PADI, not the shop. Pethaps, if you are an instructor, you could pull out the instructor materials for the wreck course and confirm this.

Asides from your comment regarding instructors needing no penetration experience or certifications, (which I believe you, btw, because it sounds like something PADI would do), I don't think that alone merits qualifying the course as a whole as one that should be described as not worth taking.

If the course was that bad there would probably be statistics to support this.


Don't get me wrong, having taken my training beyond AOW now, I do agree that the standards for OW, AOW, and a lot of the specialties are more lax than they could be. But I can also say that I have yet to come across a PADI specialty that hasn't covered the minimum of what needs to be covered to partake in an activity safely with a minimum level of time invested. This, of course, isn't probably the best way to handle things, but it seem to ME that it works.

 

[Twiddles]

WALL OF TEXT BELOW, ADJUST EYES FIRST
Well I have enjoyed the discussion, sorry for the late post, I was diving this weekend =). First off and foremost in my mind. I feel for you I really do, If your going to even attempt to compare yourself to an electrician and your comparissons of additional work were feeble at best (exactly who is trolling?)

I am an electrical contractor for which I have 5 years OJT and schooling and a state test (LOL okay forget the test) to "certify" me. I carry Liability insurance because it protects both you and me not for my own coverage but If I were working for another contractor (LDS) you can bet your sweet *** they would be covering the cost. I and thousands like me have no problem making a living at what we do because of what we do. You on the other hand by your own admission cant even fund your own projector.

I make a good living doing what I do but if you really want to compare it to what you do lets do that shall we. If you call me out and you being a novice have no idea what your problem is ask me what you should do. I say well lets see this is bad so your gonna need to replace the wiring the switch and the fixture. Why all that, you ask? "Well because the faulty wiring has damaged both the switch and the fixture and now your going to need to replace all three and its going to cost you this much". Based upon what the instructors are saying your response would sound more like this, "well lets replace that switch and thats gonna cost you this much". Oh, dam that didnt fix it did it? "Well okay lets replace the wiring and thats gonna cost this much". Oh, dam that didnt do it either. Okay well lets just replace all of it. The customers question "Well why did you have to do all that", and your response "I'll tell you what, for another $500.00 I will explain that to you".

Once again the same BS, oh you couldnt possibly handle all the information needed through AOW in one class, or dam that kind of class would cost $1300 all by itself?? Do the dam math it wouldn't cost that much it would cause very little additional impact on the student maybee (AND I MEAN MAYBEE) one additional weekend to meet all the current PADI requirements for the before mentioned classes. Quote "Same here, it fits well into the academic calendar, and the academic calendar for a diver is a weekend." End Quote. EXACTLY who said that OW or AOW or both would be a weekend class? My OW wasnt a weekend and nobody I know had a weekend OW.

Quote "Pete Carrol gets paid handsomely at USC to coach football. Do not confuse the volunteer coaches of youth sports with the coaching professionals at other levels" End quote. You didnt really just make that comparisson did you? Your ego has no bounds does it? Do you have any idea how much REVENUE that individual generates for USC?? Go soak your head. You people are not providing degrees, your not providing a service that is going to generate income for the vast majority of your students. You are providing instruction for a sport/hobby (obsession). PADI classes are not like college courses the vast majority of students gain only knowledge from your classes (partial knowledge in some of them). The knowledge gained is not going to benefit there careers (in MOST cases). College classes are divided so they present only the information that can be delivered in the time alotted. I believe they arent normally divided to present information in a way that leaves the student at risk, nor are they divided solely for the purpose of generating more income (and if you can name one that is, does it really change the point?).

When I work on your home or business I dont leave things that can hurt you and say well do some research and if you really think that item is a risk to you give me a call and I will come out and give you a price to fix it. I dont do this because I would at least feel bad, lose my license, lose my insurance, go to jail for negligence. You on the other hand, appear to have no issues whatsoever in ignoring people who have dived over 30 years almost all of whom tell you that your courses are to short and do not cover the necessary information to protect your students in the water. If I did that and something happened to you, I would go to jail because Im a professional and accountable for what I do. You on the other hand would point to PADI and say "it wasn't me".

If you CHOOSE to take additional classes for the fun/knowledge/progression/hell of it, that is of course your choice and an instructor has a right to make money off of those classes. If you choose to take a class that is supposed to educate and prepare you for diving in open water you are only choosing to take the class. You are EXPECTING to be trained in what you need to know to protect yourself in situations you will encounter in up to 60' of water for OW and in up to 130' of water for AOW. As either a OW or AOW you are likely to have HUGE gaps in your knowledge and are TRUSTING your instructor to fill in those gaps not give you a "taste".

The rest of this is just filler and frankly the arguement appears to be circular. A portion of the instructor community will continue to claim you do what you need to do to properly train your students. You will point to the Agencies for verification and validation of your methods. You will educate only what you must and you will always be willing to help that student along with another "specialty". If you can live with it so be it. I can live with it too.

 

[pir8]

So in a nutshell, since scuba is a hobby and electricians are real work, instructors should be volunteers? Just qurious if I gathered the drift from your wall of text. Cause it just seems like retorical BS to me.

 

[TSandM]

Twiddles, you'll find there are a GREAT many people on this board who agree that OW training is insufficient and that when people are taught to dive, they should be taught more, and to higher standards. And everybody agrees that such a class would be time-consuming and expensive, and not very many people would take it.

As much as we like to damn PADI, it exists in the form it does for a reason: People think they want to learn to dive, but don't want to spend much time or much money to do so. PADI has developed a system to deliver diving education in a palatable form, in chunks people are willing to pay for, and it's pretty clear that, if the instructors are both educated and motivated, the education can be decent. If they aren't either, it won't be.

At the other end of the spectrum, we have GUE, who believe in teaching everything and maintaining extremely high standards, and they've been unable to get an OW class off the ground. Is it better to give people enough exposure to diving to decide it's something they want to do, or to make the entry barriers so high that almost everybody decides to take up golf?

 

[TheHobster]

Twiddles, have fun diving and I truly hope I don't read about your sorry butt in the accident forum. Your 24 dives seem to have given you far more insight into diving than the years of experience accrued on this board.

Dive Safe.

 

[MikeFerrara]

At the other end of the spectrum, we have GUE, who believe in teaching everything and maintaining extremely high standards, and they've been unable to get an OW class off the ground. Is it better to give people enough exposure to diving to decide it's something they want to do, or to make the entry barriers so high that almost everybody decides to take up golf?

According to the GUE web site their OW course is off the ground.

 

[caymaniac]

From my point of view! I paid $180 in 1981 to become certified. I have not taken an Advanced Open Water, a naturalist diver or other like certification. I did pay $75 for my Nitrox cert. So far, invested about $1000 for my dive equip./ ditto for wife. A dive vacation for the two in the Caymans will cost us $2500., I think you are not taking the time to look at where you can find some better deals. Try looking at Liesure pro for some of your gear. Watch for specials on-line for trips, you've spent far too much!