divemaster

[Juls64]

That's what the Teaching Assistant specialty is for. DM is a leadership certification.

Joe

Different agency

 

[Sideband]

Different agency

Different than what? It isn't specified which agency they are with and I know of two agencies that have the cert. Even if he is PADI or SDI (etc.)certified it doesn't mean he is committed for life. I know several people that instruct and/or assist cross agency. I've assisted SDI classes a number of times. I'll be at OW this weekend with two students that are SDI.

If the true purpose is to gain experience from the bottom up there are other routes than rushing into DM. Once he has that DM card he is legally responsible for everything it entails, ready for it or not.
We had a similar discussion at the club meeting a few months ago where we were deciding on bringing O2 to hang on club dives or not. It was strongly brought up that since several members were DMs it became a legal liability if they brought it. Likely unintended consequences but consequences all the same. This is all somewhat moot since he has to be 18 for DM but it is still relevant to the general discussion.

Joe

 

[Sideband]

I also feel that someone should be required to be a DM for a year or longer before AI or Instructor.

That would depend on the agency. With NAUI, DM is 'above' AI. I know what you mean though. I know/had an instructor that was very proud that he became an instructor after only 2 years of diving. I heard recently that he tried to hand off an Air2 to a student during an OOA drill. Speaks volumes doesn't it?

Joe

 

[xiSkiGuy]

This is all somewhat moot since he has to be 18 for DM but it is still relevant to the general discussion.

Joe

Read the original post:

i have just read a post (not on scubaboard) by a youngster with 15 logged dives who wants to do his recue course then divemaster course.

He has 15 logged dives, not 15 years old.

 

[xiSkiGuy]

I started slowly, helping out in the pool by taking slower students off to the side and working with them to master certain skills so they wouldn't slow down the entire group. Then I started going to the quarry with an instructor to help keep the students rounded up and moving in the right direction, or whatever I was asked to do. Much of this involved helping the students set their gear up, making they were weighted properly, or just answering general questions, etc.

This is exactly what anyone getting their DM or newly certed as a DM should do. I just don't agree with people that think a DM is going to have it perfectly together the day they get a c-card, ready to lead anytime-anywhere. It is a continuing learning process.

 

[xiSkiGuy]

I think there are many ways to quantify experience that are better than number of dives

Such As? I agree that number of dives doesn't quantify experience. What does?

, and if someone has a DM cert he should be able to do EVERYTHING that a DM anywhere might do, or they should break the DM rating into pieces to say this person is a pool and beach DM and this one a boat DM and this one a deep DM and so on.

As an Instructor on the day that you got your c-card were you ready to teach every problem student perfectly the first time? Or did you learn what worked in special situations as you certified more and more divers?

 

[Diversauras]

Such As? I agree that number of dives doesn't quantify experience. What does?
As an Instructor on the day that you got your c-card were you ready to teach every problem student perfectly the first time? Or did you learn what worked in special situations as you certified more and more divers?

I'll start by saying that I became an instructor in my 15th year of diving. I had a few (hundred) dives more than the minimum. I had dived off 4 continents and 20 countries. I had worked 18 months in a dive shop as a full time employee and had helped with every class during that period, pool and OW. I became an instructor because I got tired of fixing the mistakes that the 100 dive wonders created, and then having to over prove every statement because I did not have the right c-card. The answer to your question is yes. With all that I had certainly not experienced every condition, but I had enough experience to beable to problem solve in every situtation.

As for determining experience level you could have a list of possibilities, like boat and lake and deep and surf entries and so on, and after each there would be a place for the date that dive was made and the signature of your dive buddy. Some would require more than one dive to gain real experience and those would have blanks for 2 or 3 or 4 or 10 signatures.

In the BSAC they require 11 check points and at least three occasions of snorkle diving in open water (hours worth, not minutes worth) before you get to try scuba in the pool, and when they have a rescue class the largest guy in he club is always the victim, and everyone can rescue and land him before they pass. To be the equivelant of AOW they take boat handling classes, and because it is a club everyone works with divers newer than themselves. That is all quantifiable.

When I meet people that want to learn to dive rather than just get the c-card I may spend as long as a year mentoring them through all the experiences available at the given local, and there may or may not be another c-card because the knowledg and not the recognition is tha goal.

Back to DM candidates, if they ast as tour guides they gain less experience that than if they activly participate in every class. In addition to number of dives there should be a minimum of classes with which they have helped, maybe 6 or 8, each having the 5 or more OW experiences as well as the pool sessions, and if the signing instructor is in anyway hesitant to put the DM candidate with a problem student one on one then that DM canditate is still just a candidate by how I measure experience level.

I work for a big aerospace company and there is something I learned years ago, "you get what you measure" If you measure dives, you get number of dives, if you don't measure experience you do not get it.

 

[Snowbear]

I was talked into doing the DM course shortly after certifying (20 dives worth, which took about a month) as I was a "natural." By the time the course started, I had about 50 dives. By the time I finished about 3 months later, I had about 100 dives... and I didn't count pool dives or training dives toward that 100.

I don't actually do much DMing, and it certainly did very little to improve my dive skills. But I did learn a lot about how to help out new divers and divers having difficulties. And every once in awhile it gets me a free dive day on the local charter.... though I find I enjoy diving off the Whaler (on my own schedule) a lot more

 

[minervamar]

I got my DM certification before dive #100.
I had to do an internship before the end of the training.
In other words, before getting the license to be a Dive Master, I had to act as one.

On my first dive as an intern, two divers from a group of six drifted away in the current. It was a night dive from shore. We had arrived at the dive site, and the instructor leading the group of AOW candidates had already submerged, followed by four divers.

The two drifting divers kept drifting away, and farther from shore. I pursued the closer one, made contact, and towed her to shore. I went in the direction where the second diver was last seen, saw him after a while, made contact, and towed him to shore.

Divers get lost at sea and the two drifting divers are lucky they were not lost.
They were happy to rescued, regardless of the number of dives their (not yet licensed) Dive Master had.

 

[Diversauras]

I got my DM certification before dive #100.
I had to do an internship before the end of the training.
In other words, before getting the license to be a Dive Master, I had to act as one.

On my first dive as an intern, two divers from a group of six drifted away in the current. It was a night dive from shore. We had arrived at the dive site, and the instructor leading the group of AOW candidates had already submerged, followed by four divers.

The two drifting divers kept drifting away, and farther from shore. I pursued the closer one, made contact, and towed her to shore. I went in the direction where the second diver was last seen, saw him after a while, made contact, and towed him to shore.

Divers get lost at sea and the two drifting divers are lucky they were not lost.
They were happy to rescued, regardless of the number of dives their (not yet licensed) Dive Master had.

You were qualified to perform the rescue, find the divers, what ever you want to call it, if you got the card before you had the capability to perform the duties of the DM the ending to the tale might not be so happy...