Expelled PADI instructor?

[bfw]

Please provide the specific language for these policies.

They were verbal answers by the presenter, to questions asked during annual member updates about 7 years ago.

 

[boulderjohn]

They were verbal answers by the presenter, to questions asked during annual member updates about 7 years ago.

So are you saying that PADI has specific rules that its instructors must follow, but these rules aren't written down anywhere and were only made available to a select group of instructors who happened to attend a meeting 7 years ago? Are you saying that those of us who did not attend the meeting or those of us who attended the meeting but misunderstood or those of us who attended the meeting and forgot are liable to be violating these required standards?

---------- Post added December 20th, 2015 at 10:28 AM ----------

Yes and it results in exactly what you think it might result in. Local 5 star PADI IDC center has h2 workers. They get to teach OW in 1.5 hours in the water day one, and 1.0 hours in the water day two, and they have to issue the OW cert.

This is 2.5 hours total in the water for confined water, open water, and watermanship skills. I'm good and efficient and all, but that is ridiculous.

This is not a story I heard. This is something I have had to deal with trying to help these instructors in any way I can without pissing off the 5 star store with which I have an ongoing work relationship with.

Since this cannot be done without violating PADI standards, and since you know about it, why don't you contact PADI and tell them your dilemma? They SHOULD investigate the situation and act without telling where the information came from.

When I was in the south Pacific, not far from you, early in my diving career, I witnessed an egregious violations of standards in certifying a diver, and I reported it to PADI via email. The response I got thanked me for the report, and they said they would conduct an investigation. Curious, I checked quite some time later and found that the instructor had been expelled. It's not that hard.

 

[tursiops]

They were verbal answers by the presenter, to questions asked during annual member updates about 7 years ago.

You are kidding, right? Your personally remembered hearsay is a substitute for the written standards?

 

[beanojones]

Since this cannot be done without violating PADI standards, and since you know about it, why don't you contact PADI and tell them your dilemma? They SHOULD investigate the situation and act without telling where the information came from.

When I was in the south Pacific, not far from you, early in my diving career, I witnessed an egregious violations of standards in certifying a diver, and I reported it to PADI via email. The response I got thanked me for the report, and they said they would conduct an investigation. Curious, I checked quite some time later and found that the instructor had been expelled. It's not that hard.

(Side note: I really wish you would learn that constantly talking down to people is to no good effect. And this is leaving aside that you have simply no grounds on which to talk down to me, in particular.

You are significantly less experienced than I am both in years and dives, have fewer diver ratings and instructor ratings than I do, and have dealt with PADI a lot less than I have, and really simply do not know the history of PADI very well. You have lots of great ideas, and great input, and the changes made to the Open Water Course that you played a part in are great for everyone in diving, but you constantly phrase what you say in a holier than thou way that is just annoying. People were using the PADI system to teach neutral buoyant for years before you even became an instructor, let alone wrote the article.)

This issue is way more nuanced than "tell on the instructor to PADI", because PADI made the changes that allow this happen. PADI makes CDs dependent on dive shops good graces. Who is going to throw out their $10,000 investment in becoming a CD just to tilt against windmills? PADI had a system with independent CDs who acted for the good of instructors and the good of diving against bad actor operations and dive shops, and they chose to get rid of them. CDs use to be able to get dive shops to lose their PADI affiliation. Now CDs are dependent on those same shops for their livelihood!

PADI allows instructors to be h2 workers, and allows CDs to be H2 workers!

Add these together, and you get what is happening.

It's not that it is hard. It's that I am not going to be part of a system punishing the instructor for the systemic problems that PADI themselves created. So what if I get instructor after instructor, all indentured servants working for less than minimum wage, deported?

How does that do anything but punish the people who have nothing to do with the problem in the first place, and without solving the problem?

There is a reason why I have never had any interest in working my way up the PADI system. They made a choice to destroy even the faint resemblance to a "membership" organization when they eliminated independent CDs.

 

[tursiops]

They made a choice to destroy even the faint resemblance to a "membership" organization when they eliminated independent CDs.

What are you talking about? I know several independent CDs. Is this yet another fantasy I-hate-PADI rant you are going off on? Get a grip!

 

[boulderjohn]

(Side note: I really wish you would learn that constantly talking down to people is to no good effect. And this is leaving aside that you have simply no grounds on which to talk down to me, in particular.

You are significantly less experienced than I am both in years and dives, have fewer diver ratings and instructor ratings than I do, and have dealt with PADI a lot less than I have, and really simply do not know the history of PADI very well.

Thank you for demonstrating the power of not talking down to people.

How have you ascertained my age and experience dealing with PADI?

My diver ratings and my instructor ratings are plainly stated in my profile, although I have not listed my specialty ratings there. Where are yours?

You have lots of great ideas, and great input, and the changes made to the Open Water Course that you played a part in are great for everyone in diving, but you constantly phrase what you say in a holier than thou way that is just annoying. People were using the PADI system to teach neutral buoyant for years before you even became an instructor, let alone wrote the article.)

Any achievement I have made in getting instructors to teach while neutrally buoyant, as PADI now clearly recommends, was done despite your fierce, fervid, and continual opposition. Making those changes would have been much easier, if only in the minds of the PADI instructors watching the debates on ScubaBoard and trying to form a judgment, if you had not been insisting over and over and over and over again that teaching while neutrally buoyant--as you now say people have been doing for years--was a violation of standards that could get one expelled. You continued to insist that was so even when confronted with direct and clear language from PADI that there was no violation of standards for teaching while neutral.

As for your ability to interpret PADI policies, let's look at the record. When I quoted LeRoy Wickham of PADI, who wrote in the clearest possible language that it was permissible to teach students while they are neutrally buoyant from the very beginning of the class and that no standards were being violated for doing so, you responded by stating that his statement proved that it was NOT permissible to teach neutrally buoyant because it WAS a violation of standards. When PADI President and CEO Drew Richardson praised that approach after our article appeared in the PADI professional journal, you (along with devondiver) continued to insist that it was a violation of standards that could get one expelled, saying that Drew Richardson's personal opinion was his alone and did not reflect actual PADI policy.

People reading this thread can judge accordingly. Knowing that you have a history of insisting that your interpretation of PADI policies is correct even when that interpretation is directly contradicted by both quotations of written policies and explanations from PADI officials will be telling to readers. That will help them decide whom to believe.

 

[beanojones]

What are you talking about? I know several independent CDs.

You do not know any independent CDs. You may know CDs that are not shop employees but they are still required to run their IDCs through 5 Star stores. This is hardly independent. A course director who needs to keep a shop open so they have a place to run their IDCs through is not independent, by definition.

This did not used to be the case. Course Directors used to be complete free agents able to run their IDCs completely independent of the any dive shops. And they used to use that very ability, and the fact that they had no stake in keeping any shop in business, as a remarkably powerful force for change.

And that is completely gone.

I have been a PADI instructor from before they made this change. And I have seen exactly how things changed. The independent CDs who left PADI when they were being forced to align with dive shops predicted that it might come to be so, and they were right.

Is this yet another fantasy I-hate-PADI rant you are going off on? Get a grip!

What the heck are you talking about? PADI as an educational system, and PADI as an for profit organization are two separate issues. As a producer of educational materials, they have always been the best. As a for profit organization, they have made some less than admirable choices.

This issue at hand (getting rid of CD independence) is one of their more long range echo-ing decision made in the industry as a whole. (SSI saw it as PADI basically endorsing their decision to require shop affiliation for instructors, as an example.) It's just also not something that people are aware of, because the number of people who are actual working instructors is vanishingly small, and the CDs who felt strongly about it left to join other organizations. They just take the idea that talking about the industry negative is not worth it overall.

(You, for instance, seem completely unaware that such a change was made. It did happen, though.)


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---------- Post added January 10th, 2016 at 02:57 PM ----------

Any achievement I have made in getting instructors to teach while neutrally buoyant, as PADI now clearly recommends, was done despite your fierce, fervid, and continual opposition. Making those changes would have been much easier, if only in the minds of the PADI instructors watching the debates on ScubaBoard and trying to form a judgment, if you had not been insisting over and over and over and over again that teaching while neutrally buoyant--as you now say people have been doing for years--was a violation of standards that could get one expelled. You continued to insist that was so even when confronted with direct and clear language from PADI that there was no violation of standards for teaching while neutral.

As for your ability to interpret PADI policies, let's look at the record. When I quoted LeRoy Wickham of PADI, who wrote in the clearest possible language that it was permissible to teach students while they are neutrally buoyant from the very beginning of the class and that no standards were being violated for doing so, you responded by stating that his statement proved that it was NOT permissible to teach neutrally buoyant because it WAS a violation of standards. When PADI President and CEO Drew Richardson praised that approach after our article appeared in the PADI professional journal, you (along with devondiver) continued to insist that it was a violation of standards that could get one expelled, saying that Drew Richardson's personal opinion was his alone and did not reflect actual PADI policy.

People reading this thread can judge accordingly. Knowing that you have a history of insisting that your interpretation of PADI policies is correct even when that interpretation is directly contradicted by both quotations of written policies and explanations from PADI officials will be telling to readers. That will help them decide whom to believe.

It's not about your personal fascination with me, it's about how PADI has warped the power structure, because it has made PADI 5 star a requirement for many activities, and require allegiance to 5 star shops for CDs. The only ongoing 'PADI' presence with authority in many places are CDs, and now they are forced to go along with whatever the shop does. There is a course director at the very shop I am referring to, but he like many people has to suck the 5-star to be able to use his CD rating. The last thing he wants is to get the shop closed, because he would be losing his ability to run IDCs.

How does PADI justify punishing only instructors when the instructors are dependent on the dive shop forcing them to do things a certain way for their very ability to live in the places they live? Not how does PADI 'enforce standards.' They don't enforce standards, and a big part of the reason is the very power structure they created. (Not that other agencies with less resources are necessarily doing a better job enforcing standards, but it is at least understandable how a wayward SDI/TDI instructor could escape notice, since SDI/TDI have no agency personnel present ever.) But PADI has an annual at minimum passage through its territories. And yet their only response is to kick out individual instructors, instead of eliminate route causes like shop dependent CDs and H-2 workers working as instructors.
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I have seen what happens to an H-2 worker instructor who challenges the way a dive shop operates, and all I can say is indentured servitude is alive and well in America. And if you don't like it, you can get deported without you belongings. Though a CD is generally further up the wage scale, an CD on a visa tied to a shop is no better position.

 

[Storker]

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[bfw]

So are you saying that PADI has specific rules that its instructors must follow, but these rules aren't written down anywhere and were only made available to a select group of instructors who happened to attend a meeting 7 years ago? Are you saying that those of us who did not attend the meeting or those of us who attended the meeting but misunderstood or those of us who attended the meeting and forgot are liable to be violating these required standards?

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I'm saying that at the annual updates, which members are expected to attend, there can be direct conversations where questions can be asked and authoritative answers are given.

I've also seen an instructor directly ordered to issue a cert to a student who met the letter minimum of the written standard despite the student's failure/refusal to satisfy the instructor's evaluation of mastery.

 

[Pipehorse]

I'm saying that at the annual updates, which members are expected to attend, there can be direct conversations where questions can be asked and authoritative answers are given.

I've also seen an instructor directly ordered to issue a cert to a student who met the letter minimum of the written standard despite the student's failure/refusal to satisfy the instructor's evaluation of mastery.

Am I missing something here, or is this the answer to a question from 6.5 years ago?