Diver Training: How much is enough?

[boulderjohn]

I also personally question the current trend to do the academic portion online or locally and the dives themselves in a tropical destination. I've seen this presented to non divers but never with the caveats that should go with it. It is often used to "sell" the non diver but they wind up practical learning in conditions that do not reflect their home locale.

Where I instruct in Colorado roughly 80% of the students who do their academic and pool instruction locally finish up in a tropical resort. We have only a couple of local sites that are diveable, and just about none of them are dived in the winter. IN the winter, the best options require a 7 hour drive, one of them to a thermal pool in Utah that is like a 94 degree hot tub. I strongly suspect that 90% of the people who complete their certification locally will never dive locally in their lives. Only a hearty few do so. I would guess that 90% of the students I have taught intend to do 100% of their future dives in warm water resorts.

The fact that you are only prepared for the kind of diving in which you are certified is a part of the instructional content, and it is part of the testing. Students are required to demonstrate that they know that.

Finally, as I have said before, when we are teaching students in the academic and pool portions of the class, we may have some going tropical and some going local. We prepare all of them the same way. Everyone leaves the pool with the same training. There is virtually no adjustment needed for the ones who dive locally. If a tropically-trained diver decides to dive locally, it is no big deal to make the adjustment. As I also said earlier, ALL of my certification training--academic through open water--was done in the tropics. When I decided to dive locally, I wore a thicker wet suit and more weight. It was not exactly a life-altering change.

 

[DCBC]

Wayne, I know this is a sensitive point so please feel free to say 'no comment' but I know that you were CEO of CMAS Canada for about a year before leaving that post. Can you tell us why you parted ways with them?

I was asked to take the position permanently, however I told them I wasn't interested, as I was wanting to retire. I did eventually agree to a 12 month term, which was completed in January 2012. I tend to get roped into these things and have also been convinced to do a couple of consulting contracts for Big Oil over the past year (despite "being retired?") Hopefully 2013 is the year...

 

[drrich2]

The issue of breaking OW down into supervised diver, resort diver, OW diver, etc...is an interesting philosophical question that reminds me of one of my old teachers who claimed many people fall into 1 of 2 categories; splitters and lumpers. I'm a lumper, but the suggested approach is a splitter approach.

Let's compare to drivers' licenses. Right now, in the U.S., there's one basic non-commercial civilian drivers license. That system seems to work well enough to suit most, though of course there are many horrific car wrecks each year.

Let's say somebody proposed to change that, and took this approach to drivers licenses. Categories would be:

1.) Country Driver - can only drive in rural areas with relatively straight, open roads and almost no traffic congestion.

2.) Small Town Driver - as above plus towns up to 50,000, and also low traffic suburbs of larger communities. May use interstates with entrance/exit ramps.

3.) City Driver - adds cities up to 200,000.

4.) Metropolitan Driver - you can drive in downtown Manhattan, etc...

This could logically be done, but is this something we really want? Unless you are trying to forcibly prevent marginal divers from diving unsupervised outside benign tropics, as opposed to warning them about the dangers then let them do what they choose.

Richard.

 

[Diver0001]

I was asked to take the position permanently, however I told them I wasn't interested, as I was wanting to retire. I did eventually agree to a 12 month term, which was completed in January 2012. I tend to get roped into these things and have also been convinced to do a couple of consulting contracts for Big Oil over the past year (despite "being retired?") Hopefully 2013 is the year...

I see. Thanks for the frank answer.

R..

 

[nimoh]

The issue of breaking OW down into supervised diver, resort diver, OW diver, etc...is an interesting philosophical question that reminds me of one of my old teachers who claimed many people fall into 1 of 2 categories; splitters and lumpers. I'm a lumper, but the suggested approach is a splitter approach.

Let's compare to drivers' licenses. Right now, in the U.S., there's one basic non-commercial civilian drivers license. That system seems to work well enough to suit most, though of course there are many horrific car wrecks each year.

Let's say somebody proposed to change that, and took this approach to drivers licenses. Categories would be:

1.) Country Driver - can only drive in rural areas with relatively straight, open roads and almost no traffic congestion.

2.) Small Town Driver - as above plus towns up to 50,000, and also low traffic suburbs of larger communities. May use interstates with entrance/exit ramps.

3.) City Driver - adds cities up to 200,000.

4.) Metropolitan Driver - you can drive in downtown Manhattan, etc...

This could logically be done, but is this something we really want? Unless you are trying to forcibly prevent marginal divers from diving unsupervised outside benign tropics, as opposed to warning them about the dangers then let them do what they choose.

Richard.

probably one of the most insightful analogies I have seen in a long time.

 

[DCBC]

Let's compare to drivers' licenses. ...Country Driver, Small Town Driver, City Driver, Metropolitan Driver This could logically be done, but is this something we really want?

In my area we have a graduated driver's licensing system:

1/ Learner's License - No passengers (except an experienced driver who holds at least a Class 5 license) and zero blood alcohol level for the learning driver.

2/ Newly Licensed Driver (2 years) - Zero blood alcohol level, only one front seat passenger (rear seat passengers limited to the number of available seat belts), no upgrade beyond a Class 5 driver's license (car, small truck/van) and no driving between midnight and 5:00AM (unless accompanied by an experienced driver).

3/ Moreover, the "Newly Licensed Driver" must "graduate" to a Class 5 License by completing a defensive driving course (a copy of the graduation certificate must be provided, in person or by mail, to any Registry of Motor Vehicles office for recording purposes).

This modular system has resulted from new driver's being statistically less competent to drive safely... Diving analogy???

 

[drrich2]

DCBC:

Interesting stuff! When I was learning in Arkansas, there was a learner's permit, then a full driver's license. But to compare with the current mainstream system, we have:

1.) Scuba Diver rating - with an instructor, rather shallow depth limit, and nobody seems to want this rating.

2.) OW Diver - recommended buddy diving only, conditions as good or better than what you trained in, stay shallow (not over 60 feet deep).

3.) AOW Diver - not over 100 feet.

4.) Deep Diver - not over 130 feet.

We also assume a person can, via gradual independent expansion of personal capability (e.g.: mentoring), reach higher levels of mastery without formal training.

So we have an informal graduated system, where divers are expected to police themselves.

Drawing on the driver's license analogy, I've got a KY driver's license. I assume that if I vacationed in your area, I'd be legal to drive there (I'm in my 40's, so no age-based criteria for teens would apply). But it would be up to me to exercise judgment, assess your local driving conditions, and decide whether my driving skills are adequate for your local environment.

The current de facto rec. diving system in the U.S. largely requires a cert. to get air fills, use scuba quarries and go on charter boat trips. I think most of us (consciously or not) advocate some measure of requiring education/demonstrated proficiency before 'allowing' people to dive (without a basic OW course, lung expansion injuries, buoyancy control & much more are unknown to potential divers, so they lack informed decisional capacity).

The question is, at what point to you relinquish control and let the 'student' decide when, where & how he/she will dive?

Richard.

 

[boulderjohn]

Drawing on the driver's license analogy, I've got a KY driver's license. I assume that if I vacationed in your area, I'd be legal to drive there (I'm in my 40's, so no age-based criteria for teens would apply). But it would be up to me to exercise judgment, assess your local driving conditions, and decide whether my driving skills are adequate for your local environment.

This is a long thread, and we may have forgotten that this has already been discussed.

I had a driver's license and decades of experience before I went to Rome and realized I was in no way ready to drive in that city.

Should my driver's education instructor back in high school devised some kind of a drill to prepare me for Roman driving, in case I ever went there decades later? Should I have been prepared to drive on the left side of the road in case I ever went somewhere that used the British system? Should I have been trained to use a car with the steering wheel on the right, just in case I ever did that?

Finally, should I have been taught how to start a car by turning a crank handle in the front? After all, drivers back in the early days of driving had to do that, and it was a standard part of driving instruction until more modern driver's education instructors lowered the standards.

 

[The Chairman]

I remember driving through Snowmageddon a couple of years ago on my way to the Baltimore Dive Show.

Me: Why are we the only car doing 65 MPH???
Elena: I don't know, Why ARE we the the only car doing 65 MPH???????

 

[DaleC]

I don't see it as clumping and splitting. I see it as being realistic about what is being achieved. I see most of this debate going back and forth because two sides are arguing for very different things but having to label it with the same banner. Lynne described it a few posts ago.

One side is arguing for a comprehensive training regime that turns out divers capable of diving in a variety of conditions with a firm grasp on the underlying premises diving is based upon. That covers some divers.

The other side is arguing that today's diver doesn't need all that because they are mostly vacation warm water divers who just want to have fun and see some fish. To be honest, that probably describes most divers and there's nothing inherently wrong with it.

The conflict comes when trying to clump those two very different camps under one certification. It either gives the sense of shorting the comprehensive diver or over-burdening the vacation diver.

We can spend 380 posts arguing about why we can't smash round pegs into square holes (and vise versa) or just accept that all divers are not trying to achieve the same things and offer them what they want under the appropriate label.

Let's look at the drivers analogy another way. With a basic drivers license in my area one can drive either a Ford F-350 diesel pulling a travel trailer or a 49cc moped. What if, over the years, most people simply preferred to drive mopeds and driving instruction was scaled down to reflect that type of driver-the majority. Would it still be appropriate to suggest that the basic license prepares people to drive either a moped or a Ford F-350 pulling a travel trailer.

---------- Post added January 11th, 2013 at 03:37 PM ----------