Dive Master... why?

[Thalassamania]

And you pass judgement on people you have never met or seen in the water.

Making crude assumptions and generalisations is the trait of a feeble or closed mind.

I would expect more of you than comments like this Thalassamania.....

Let's examine the issue for moment. You seem to be suggesting that I am in no position to make a comparison between what you do and what I do. You seem to think that I make crude assumptions and generalizations. Let me show you how that is not the case, and further, how you are the only one here who might be making crude assumptions and generalizations. Ready?

You have the termidity to suggest that what you teach, and the way in which you teach it, is not only adequate to your needs, but, since in your limited experience you can not see that there is any possible other way, it should be serviceable for my needs as well, despite the fact that your are totally ignorant of what I need to accomplish.

True, I have never met you or seen you in the water. But for the purpose of this discussion lets say that your personal skills are beyond those of the absolute best of the hundreds of PADI instructors that I've known over the years (that would be Hank Veix, the retired Diving Officer of the United States Military Academy at West Point). Let's also say that your teaching skills are as good as Hank's and that your evaluations are as insightful. OK? Got it? Poof ... you are now one of, if not the best, PADI instructor on earth.

But, and this the thing that it appears to me you fail to grasp, you're not being asked to train a recreational diver in a classic time frame. You are being asked to train a future United States Army Officer in a class that has plenty of time, but that is rather strangely broken up, and these cadets are expected, at the end of semester's training to have water skills close to your own, as well as book knowledge that eclipses the average PADI Instructor. It is now the mid 1980s, and you're doing a pretty damn good job of routinely meeting that specification. But now PADI comes out with a new and much more controlling set of standards. You can find no way to both meet the required level of student accomplishment and PADI standards, even with the direct involvement and advice of the folks at PADI HQ. So what do you do? You go see Thal and crossover to NAUI, because Thal understands that when you try and throw a volkswagen engine into a performance car about the best you can hope for is a Porsche 914, a rather unsatisfying compromise.

Just as you have not the faintest idea what it required for Hank to do his job, similarly you have no idea in my case. But unless you are also operating in a world like one of ours, I know exactly what it is that you do, I assume that you do it as well as possible under the circumstances, but I know for a fact that it is no use what-so-ever to me. If that is "passing judgement" on you ... all I can tell you is that is a judgement that, based on background, training, and experience I am well qualified to make, but that, in reality, you'd be rather hard pressed to demonstrate your qualifications for. Sorry if that's harsh, but that's reality, which is not always warm, fuzzy and kind.

 

[DevonDiver]

You seem completely blinded (and enormously assuming).... as soon as you read the letters P.A.D.I.

Obviously, in your mind, no PADI diver could be good in the water...and no PADI instructor could be a consumate, experienced professional. Of course, it would be unfeasible for you that a PADI instructor could have a wider breadth of experience than just the PADI system... or have views or standards that surpassed the basic criteria of their educational program.

For a supposed academic and experienced diver, I am genuinely shocked and dismayed at your blinkered attitude.

I can only wonder at what personal benefits you would seek to gain from consistently attacking recreational diving agencies and those who work within them.

And yes.... I have trained Army Officers and a host of other 'interesting' military assignments ....so please quit the childish assumptions that really do not do a man of your academic...or diving... stature any justice.

 

[Thalassamania]

You seem completely blinded (and enormously assuming).... as soon as you read the letters P.A.D.I.

Obviously, in your mind, no PADI diver could be good in the water...and no PADI instructor could be a consumate, experienced professional. Of course, it would be unfeasible for you that a PADI instructor could have a wider breadth of experience than just the PADI system... or have views or standards that surpassed the basic criteria of their educational program.

For a supposed academic and experienced diver, I am genuinely shocked and dismayed at your blinkered attitude.

I can only wonder at what personal benefits you would seek to gain from consistently attacking recreational diving agencies and those who work within them.

And yes.... I have trained Army Officers and a host of other 'interesting' military assignments ....so please quit the childish assumptions that really do not do a man of your academic...or diving... stature any justice.

For me this has nothing to do with agencies, or your fantasies. Your name calling and the aspersions you heap on my character and credentials, and upon my motivation truly is as Shakespeare put it: "... a tale. Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

"Nothing," because you have no experience with alternate models and you can't see that what this is about is the development of a level of competence in the water that you are unfamiliar with, but that's another issue. The issue here is the classic one, you do not seem to know that there are things that you don't know. I've had this discussion often enough to know that it will proceed one of two ways; Either you will just continue to whine and fling poo, or (if you are honest) you will acknowledge that what you do is not the same, is rather somewhat less, and you will advance the mia cuplpa of it being the best that you can, given the constraints of what the pubic wants and is willing to pay for.

I am amazed at how you can willful confuse the training needs of an occasional Army Officer and a "host of other 'interesting' military assignments" with the requirements of running a program at a national military academy, and is is that blindness goes to the heart of the issue. You simply do not understand, but rather than just accepting that there other things out there that you have no experience with and know nothing about, you insist on pretending that you are an expert in all things. With that attitude its no wonder that you insist on nattering on and on, like some religious zealot who simply can not conceive that the religious affiliations they hold so dear are completely irrelevant to others.

My only stake in any of this is a belief that people should receive, without constraint, the best training; that is what I have spent my adult working life delivering. I have had the luxury of being in a position that I did not have to flog a product on the market in competition with all the quick buck artists, but rather, by dint of establishing a reputation for absolute quality, worked myself into a position where an institution paid my entire salary and I was not forced into the compromises and concomitant rationalizations required of many who must piecemeal a living, one student here, one student there, one sale here, one sale there. I've many friends whom I've watched have to do that, so I know how difficult that can be and it can distort their judgment and even warp their core values.

As to the patent absurdity of:

"Obviously, in your mind, no PADI diver could be good in the water...and no PADI instructor could be a consumate, experienced professional. Of course, it would be unfeasible for you that a PADI instructor could have a wider breadth of experience than just the PADI system... or have views or standards that surpassed the basic criteria of their educational program."
​

Did I not just provide you with an example of a PADI Instructor (Hank Veix) who was both, "a consumate, experienced professional," and who had, "a wider breadth of experience than just the PADI system?" My issue is not with the PADI person, per se, but rather that the PAI system is, incongruously and simultaneously, both too rigid in structure and too bereft of content to serve the needs of my community. If it works for you, fine, but please try not to tell me what would work for me, at least until you actually understand what it is that I need to do. This is just one more example of your not know that there are things that you don't know.

 

[Doppler]

let's examine the issue for moment... Snipped... Which is not always warm, fuzzy and kind.

classic... Memorable... Worthwhile

 

[Plumb bob]

My only stake in any of this is a belief that people should receive, without constraint, the best training; that is what I have spent my adult working life delivering. I have had the luxury of being in a position that I did not have to flog a product on the market in competition with all the quick buck artists, but rather, by dint of establishing a reputation for absolute quality, worked myself into a position where an institution paid my entire salary and I was not forced into the compromises and concomitant rationalizations required of many who must piecemeal a living, one student here, one student there, one sale here, one sale there. I've many friends whom I've watched have to do that, so I know how difficult that can be and it can distort their judgment and even warp their core values.

 

[DevonDiver]

For me this has nothing to do with agencies, or your fantasies. Your name calling and the aspersions you heap on my character and credentials, and upon my motivation truly is as Shakespeare put it: "... a tale. Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

I diid not call you any names Thalassamania.... just pointed out that I would expect a more rationalized and less assuming attitude from someone with such an illustrious academic background.

"Nothing," because you have no experience with alternate models and you can't see that what this is about is the development of a level of competence in the water that you are unfamiliar with, but that's another issue. The issue here is the classic one, you do not seem to know that there are things that you don't know. I've had this discussion often enough to know that it will proceed one of two ways; Either you will just continue to whine and fling poo, or (if you are honest) you will acknowledge that what you do is not the same, is rather somewhat less, and you will advance the mia cuplpa of it being the best that you can, given the constraints of what the pubic wants and is willing to pay for.

Again...assumptions. How would you know what my experience in alternative models was?

You think I am only...and have ever only... been a PADI diver??

I am amazed at how you can willful confuse the training needs of an occasional Army Officer and a "host of other 'interesting' military assignments" with the requirements of running a program at a national military academy, and is is that blindness goes to the heart of the issue. You simply do not understand, but rather than just accepting that there other things out there that you have no experience with and know nothing about, you insist on pretending that you are an expert in all things. With that attitude its no wonder that you insist on nattering on and on, like some religious zealot who simply can not conceive that the religious affiliations they hold so dear are completely irrelevant to others.

Since when did it become an 'occasional army officer'?

I am well aware of the requirements of running programs at national military academies.... I have done so in the UK.

I am not insisting that I am an expert on all things - I am merely refuting your assumption that I am a close-minded PADI instructor, with no experience outside of that realm or training methodology.

I feel that PADI serves it's purpose...nothing more, nothing less. There are better and more comprehensive ways to train divers....but outside of the commercial, academic or military spheres, such training schemes would be cost-prohibitive for 99% of those people who seek to learn scuba diving.

PADI offer a modular and progressive training system, that makes scuba diving accessable to the wider population. It has its fault...and I am sure we can agree on those. However, it is a very different realm than the academic institutions where you taught diving...where profitability, budgetary constraints and personal income were not relevant issues.

My only stake in any of this is a belief that people should receive, without constraint, the best training; that is what I have spent my adult working life delivering. I have had the luxury of being in a position that I did not have to flog a product on the market in competition with all the quick buck artists, but rather, by dint of establishing a reputation for absolute quality, worked myself into a position where an institution paid my entire salary and I was not forced into the compromises and concomitant rationalizations required of many who must piecemeal a living, one student here, one student there, one sale here, one sale there. I've many friends whom I've watched have to do that, so I know how difficult that can be and it can distort their judgment and even warp their core values.

As a BSAC instructor, I had simular luxuries....and enjoyed greatly teaching with no time constraints. As a PADI instructor, I have to work harder to create the same outcome within a given time frame. That said, I can honestly state that I do not prostitute my core values (namely to create confident, competant and safe scuba divers), because of external factors. Maybe my location, market and way of operating is not typical of the PADI instructor/school.... but I have made several consious choices about how I wanted to work and have found/created the situation I wanted to work in.

I could only wish that I could find employment, such as yours, where I recieved a healthy academics salary...for doing the same job as I do now... You are lucky for the opportunities you created and took in your career.

However, to cast judgment on any recreational instructor...simply because they take payment for their services is incorrect and assuming. That is my only point.

Did I not just provide you with an example of a PADI Instructor (Hank Veix) who was both, "a consumate, experienced professional," and who had, "a wider breadth of experience than just the PADI system?" My issue is not with the PADI person, per se, but rather that the PAI system is, incongruously and simultaneously, both too rigid in structure and too bereft of content to serve the needs of my community. If it works for you, fine, but please try not to tell me what would work for me, at least until you actually understand what it is that I need to do. This is just one more example of your not know that there are things that you don't know.

Again, I disagree.... but that is based on my perception of the PADI system. I see it as a global teaching methodology...and is based on modular learning. It has to be all things to all people. That is not necessarily bad...just different to being able to structure a single all-encompassing training program.

Based on my perspective of teaching a 'modular' system... I can provide the training and experience needed by my customers based on their own specific needs and goals. What is inflexible or limited about that?

 

[Thalassamania]

I diid not call you any names Thalassamania.... just pointed out that I would expect a more rationalized and less assuming attitude from someone with such an illustrious academic background.

What you get is my totally rational views without any punches pulled, if you find that to be an "assuming" attitude that's more about you than about me,

Again...assumptions. How would you know what my experience in alternative models was?

I said:

That is one of the strangest statements that I've ever read. While it may be true for you, that is just you, rather than the entire realm of possibilities. I, for one, can run the course that I do, and not run afoul of any NAUI rules or requirements, but I could not run my course under PADI rules, if for no other reason than I would not comply with the required skill order and exercises.
​

You replied:

My statement was getting down to basics....a mask remove is a mask remove, air sharing is air sharing. The basic requirements for any scuba entry-level course are pretty identical.

Ok, the order or sequence of skills can vary between agencies... but even that is flexible. Even with PADI, you have flexibility about sequencing. Within any particular 'module' you can order as you want. If you 'need' to change order within modules, then you can apply for a dispensation.
​

Are you now stepping back from that statement?

You think I am only...and have ever only... been a PADI diver??

Whatever you have been, your background appears inadequate to permit you to admit that perhaps I know a bit more about my own field of endeavor than you do.

Since when did it become an 'occasional army officer'?

I am well aware of the requirements of running programs at national military academies.... I have done so in the UK.

You were (or are) the DSO for Sandhurst? If not, in the context of this discussion, "an occasional Army Officer," about sums is up.

I am not insisting that I am an expert on all things - I am merely refuting your assumption that I am a close-minded PADI instructor, with no experience outside of that realm or training methodology.

You are the one who presented as knowing it all and being prepared to tell me what would work in my situation. Are you no longer an expert in teaching scientists how to dive?

I feel that PADI serves it's purpose...nothing more, nothing less. There are better and more comprehensive ways to train divers....but outside of the commercial, academic or military spheres, such training schemes would be cost-prohibitive for 99% of those people who seek to learn scuba diving.

Gee, that's almost exactly what I suggested that you'd say:

"I've had this discussion often enough to know that it will proceed one of two ways; Either you will just continue to whine and fling poo, or (if you are honest) you will acknowledge that what you do is not the same, is rather somewhat less, and you will advance the mia cuplpa of it being the best that you can, given the constraints of what the pubic wants and is willing to pay for."
​

I'm glad you took the honest way out.

PADI offer a modular and progressive training system, that makes scuba diving accessable to the wider population. It has its fault...and I am sure we can agree on those. However, it is a very different realm than the academic institutions where you taught diving...where profitability, budgetary constraints and personal income were not relevant issues.

Gee, sounds familiar:

"My only stake in any of this is a belief that people should receive, without constraint, the best training; that is what I have spent my adult working life delivering. I have had the luxury of being in a position that I did not have to flog a product on the market in competition with all the quick buck artists, but rather, by dint of establishing a reputation for absolute quality, worked myself into a position where an institution paid my entire salary and I was not forced into the compromises and concomitant rationalizations required of many who must piecemeal a living, one student here, one student there, one sale here, one sale there. I've many friends whom I've watched have to do that, so I know how difficult that can be and it can distort their judgment and even warp their core values."
​

As a BSAC instructor, I had simular luxuries....and enjoyed greatly teaching with no time constraints. As a PADI instructor, I have to work harder to create the same outcome within a given time frame. That said, I can honestly state that I do not prostitute my core values (namely to create confident, competant and safe scuba divers), because of external factors. Maybe my location, market and way of operating is not typical of the PADI instructor/school.... but I have made several consious choices about how I wanted to work and have found/created the situation I wanted to work in.

Work as hard as you want, it is not possible to cram ten pounds of poo in a five pound sack. Within the system that you choose to use neither Hank, nor I, could accomplish what we have to do, we would have to make serious compromises. Are you so much better than either of us?

I could only wish that I could find employment, such as yours, where I recieved a healthy academics salary...for doing the same job as I do now... You are lucky for the opportunities you created and took in your career.

Wishing does not help, there's not much luck involved. I dedicated my life to scientific diving, worked with most of the leaders in the field and used what I'd learn to found a program. You could never do so, or even be hired into such a position, because you clearly do understand what needs to be done. Perhaps, in time, you could be taught, but I know of many well qualified instructors that I and other DSOs have trained over the years who do not come to the position carrying so much baggage and with a need for so much retraining.

However, to cast judgment on any recreational instructor...simply because they take payment for their services is incorrect and assuming. That is my only point.

Your point is specious, your comments were incorrect, your approach was
(at best) heavy handed. The only judgment that I made was that you were not equipped to tell me what would work for me, and what would not. You have amply demonstrated that my judgment was quite correct, so I fail to understand your complaint.

Again, I disagree.... but that is based on my perception of the PADI system. I see it as a global teaching methodology...and is based on modular learning. It has to be all things to all people. That is not necessarily bad...just different to being able to structure a single all-encompassing training program.

It is not all things to all people, it is of no use what-so-ever to me and mine.

Based on my perspective of teaching a 'modular' system... I can provide the training and experience needed by my customers based on their own specific needs and goals. What is inflexible or limited about that?

Nothing, or everything, I don't know, but from my observation and experience ... it is my opinion that you're likely fooling yourself and your customers since suggesting that a one size fits all program that, "has to be all things to all people," can also, "provide the training and experience needed by my customers based on their own specific needs and goals," appears (at best) to be internally inconsistent.

 

[Suian]

Quit your squabbling fellas.
This thread is for discussing why people become a DM, not who has the better teaching system.
They are essentially all the same, everyone learns and teaches differently and just because X agency teaches abc skill order, doesn't mean that Y agency is better because it teaches cba skill order.

I will tell you something that all agencies have in common when creating a programme of learning.
Their aim is:
1. Safety.
2. Build confidence in the student.
3. Educate them with a combination of practical and theoretical knowledge as well as experience.

Now, you can argue whatever you want over that, but every single course I have done, safety has always been the top priority.

As for divemaster, its a challenging course, it can be very gruelling at times (especially if you don't like early starts) and some modules are hard, if you take the course seriously then you will become a better diver out of it.

 

[Thalassamania]

There is a critical piece that you guys are missing, we don't do the same thing. We teach a 100 hour entry-level course based on the original Scripps model from 1952 (that evolved into both the LA County and NAUI Instructor Training programs) that is specifically designed to meet the AAUS requirements (which I helped to develop and codify). I leave it to you to describe exactly what you do, but I feel fairly safe in assuming that it is a rather minor variation on a PADI Open Water course that runs 18 to 36 hours, includes 4 or 5 dives and utilizes the full suite of PADI materials. I expect that you'd be willing to siputlate that our "graduates" have more in common in the way of skills and knowledge with yourselves than they would with yoru students.

What you say about agencies is basically true, but only if the course that you run is the course that the agency markets to you. If you use the agency materials, the agency syllabus, the agency texts, the agency cue cards, the agency videos, etc., well ... in that case it really makes only a little difference what agency you serve, from that perspective they're all pretty much them same.

But ... if there is a reason that you need too step outside of that box, as in my case, and use non-agency materials (e.g. NOAA or NAVY Manual) , your own syllabus, your own tests to augment the agency tests, a water skills order that is at variance with an agency's, lectures rather than agency videos, etc., and (solely for the convenience of your students) you want to offer a certification card there are really only two agencies that you can work with: NAUI and SEI.

You seem to think it is just a matter of " X agency teaches abc skill order, and I think Y agency is better because it teaches cba skill order." That is not the case. The course I teach is radically different than the one that you teach, but that is not a function of the agency, that is a function of the fact that we live and teach in completely different worlds. I do not add my minuscule individuality to that of the agency collective, rather I use an agency (whose standards are met within the course that I teach), to provide a convienience ot my students, without any need to modify my course structure.

All that I've been saying in this thread is that while I really don't give a damn what you do, you have no business telling me that what you do is good enough to meet my students need, that is the height of hubris. And yes, I have a gut level dislike for agencies like PADI and SSI that prevent good instructors from stretching themselves to be even better in all but the most microscopic ways.

 

[merxlin]

Hello, After finishing the advanced certification (in whatever agency)... what would be the need to continue to further steps if you are only doing recreational diving and not looking at it as a career to make money with.... is there any added value for the recreational diver to be a PADI dive master over being AOWD with some specialties that one would take to enhance his skills?

Not unless you want to be a professional diver and all that this level of certification involves, including the liability. If you just want to be a better diver, take classes or dive with more experienced divers that have the ability to explain how you can improve. If you are comfortable in the formal systems like PADI, NAUI, SSA, SSI and the others, then do it that way. And dive, a lot if you can, using each dive as a learning experience.

And don't be discouraged by the argumentative posts that are basically a "who's SMB is bigger" debate. The fact is there are lots of ways to learn, but until you know what you want to get out of it, you may not be able to make the best choice. The good news is all these people offer options for you to consider, and are all valid.