Expelled PADI instructor?

[Britt]

I would have to disagree with you concerning the statement that they never tell the truth. There are several times I have seen disagreements between an agency and an instructor that started as a disagreement between people due to a personal problem. A few of the disagreements escalated to the point that there was no remedy without the instructor leaving the agency and finding another. There were no lies told by the instructor, and the fault was with the person at the agency. When it progressed, the agency had to protect its employee, not the instructor.

 

[tursiops]

I would have to disagree with you concerning the statement that they never tell the truth. There are several times I have seen disagreements between an agency and an instructor that started as a disagreement between people due to a personal problem. A few of the disagreements escalated to the point that there was no remedy without the instructor leaving the agency and finding another. There were no lies told by the instructor, and the fault was with the person at the agency. When it progressed, the agency had to protect its employee, not the instructor.

You seem to be focused on people who quit an agency for various reasons. The thread is about people who are expelled by the agency. That is rather different, especially with respect to telling the truth if asked.

 

[Britt]

You seem to be focused on people who quit an agency for various reasons. The thread is about people who are expelled by the agency. That is rather different, especially with respect to telling the truth if asked.

No, Im focused on people that are expelled due to reasons other than moral or safety issues. Not everyone that has been expelled has done something wrong. If you look at it from an agency point of view, expulsion of an instructor is the best option to prevent problems when it involves an employee/senior staff member that has made a mistake but is also high on the totem pole. There is not one of you that can tell me that every instructor ever expelled from an agency was at fault. In the case of a few, the fault does lie on them for sticking with an agency that didnt follow through, back them up, requested they violate standards, falsify paperwork, or refused to return money, etc.. The agencies protect themselves first just like facilities protect themselves if an instructor screws up. The key is finding the lesser of the evils sometimes.

As for the instructor that was expelled that the Op is asking about, it might have been a safety issue, but there is a chance that he had a disagreement with the agency and they expelled him to prevent losing money, credibility, or just to get him out of sight so they could hide the issue. The best course of action is for the OP to ask the instructor what happened and make an informed decision instead of trusting that an agency knows everything and is not covering their own mistake by expelling the instructor.

 

[tursiops]

No, Im focused on people that are expelled due to reasons other than moral or safety issues. Not everyone that has been expelled has done something wrong.

That may be where you are focused, but it is not what you wrote about. Your example in #61 is about disagreements, so the instructor left the agency. What does this have to do with expulsion?

There is not one of you that can tell me that every instructor ever expelled from an agency was at fault.

What you have written sounds like an event that you were personally connected to, in fact you may have been the instructor being described. That is a very narrow counter-example to the general statement that expulsion is about "moral or safety issues." It sounds like a standards violation followed by a refusal to accept responsibility....which is certainly grounds for expulsion! Also, once again, we are only hearing your side of the story, which is rarely compelling.

 

[Britt]

What I am trying to explain is that everyone is 100% sure their agency is doing everything possible to make sure they thrive and survive... until they find that the agency only looks out for its own best interests. The Guilty before proven Innocent concept is BS and not everyone that has been expelled was expelled for a justifiable reason. To automatically assume that someone that has been expelled did something wrong is almost as stupid as assuming the guy that shot someone breaking into his house is guilty of leaving his door open so he could kill someone.

There are a lot of narrow counter-examples that could be given, and as for being connected to events, as an IT, I get connected to a lot of events. Instructors swimming away from their students and leaving them with an AOW, other ITs completing an ITC from 1000 miles away over the phone, students receiving certifications without completing the required dives, agencies fudging paperwork to pacify a student, instructors taking money for a class knowing that they arent certified to teach the class, uncertified divers finishing an open water dives with a master diver and the instructor diving with their significant other instead of being with the student. I could go on for hours on the things I have seen, but the end result is that instructors here are telling someone that is concerned about an instructor that the instructor is guilty because he has been expelled before the instructors or the OP even know what the person was guilty of. When the SHTF for one of you and you get expelled for something you didnt do, you might look back on this and wish someone might have stood up for you and helped you prove your innocence before they tell everyone that if you got expelled, you are guilty of something, even if they dont know what you are guilty of.

One last note... quit looking at agencies as the be all, end all of the dive industry. They are businesses and will do what they want to survive and hang out anyone necessary to cover their own. There are instances that the agency does the right thing, but put them in a position of dropping someone to prevent any hassles and see how fast the letter gets sent out. The rose colored glasses are a blinder, not a fashion accessory.

 

[The Chairman]

What I am trying to explain is that everyone is 100% sure their agency is doing everything possible to make sure they thrive and survive...

In debate we call this the fallacy of misleading vividness. I doubt that anyone posting in this thread is "%100 sure" about any agency, much less "everyone". With that premise debunked, I am sure that most in here don't feel that the agencies expel nearly enough instructors and that if you DO get expelled, you must have really done something bone head stupid. I get inundated with a lot of inside stories about situations simply because I own ScubaBoard. That I don't repeat them and give advice on how to deal with the fallout, keeps people telling me these stories. There's only one that stands out in my mind where I believe an agency was simply being petty. Even then, there was no expulsion. They simply won't let him renew his teaching cert. All the others were obvious standards violations resulting in injuries and even death.

Is it about business? Hell yeah. Retaining an incompetent instructor who puts students at risk is not a viable business plan. Too many instructors blame their agency for their mistakes. Like the clown at the Boy Scout Camp who let the Scout drown. He sued his agency for 'throwing him under the bus' since they won't stand behind his flagrant standards violations. There's certainly a lot of blame to spread around on that deal, but it's my opinion that the agency did no wrong. Shops and instructors often let their circumstances erode their decision making process. It's hard to make good decisions when you are facing a financial catastrophe as many of these shops and instructors are. They cut corners, cut prices, take on too many students and then the Caca hits the fan. You aren't within standards if you take 8 students in poor conditions. You aren't even within standards if you took two and couldn't keep up with them. Blaming the agency for an instructor's inability to exercise judgement is beyond myopic.

Are there exceptions? Sure. Talk with the instructor about what happened. If you feel uncomfortable talking with the instructor, then simply find another one. You have to feel confident that your instructor is competent for you to be able to learn effectively. There are tons of instructors out there and somehow, most of us never run afoul of the agencies we teach under. It takes a special instructor to be expelled... and probably not the kind of "special" you want to deal with.

 

[Wookie]

I personally have done many things worthy of being expelled. I even wrote some of them up as incident reports. What I never did is lie or do anything to discredit the agency. I left that agency after 20 years because of the incident NetDoc spoke of, as I did feel that the agency set the instructor up for failure, but that's another conversation that I've had multiple times, and, like politics, no one will ever change another's mind.

The only reason folks get expelled is for bringing disrepute on their agency, or exposing the agency to a potential liability. Exposing yourself to liability will almost never get you expelled. Of course, if you have a habit of doing stupid things, your time is probably limited.

 

[The Chairman]

Fair enough, Frank... but I bet you still feel that the instructor exercised poor, poor judgement on that fatal dive.

 

[boulderjohn]

I would have to disagree with you concerning the statement that they never tell the truth. There are several times I have seen disagreements between an agency and an instructor that started as a disagreement between people due to a personal problem. A few of the disagreements escalated to the point that there was no remedy without the instructor leaving the agency and finding another. There were no lies told by the instructor, and the fault was with the person at the agency. When it progressed, the agency had to protect its employee, not the instructor.

If you read what I wrote, I said that in every case I witnessed in which the moderating staff of ScubaBoard disciplined someone who later went into a thread to explain why he or she was disciplined, that person lied about it, making the moderating staff of ScubaBoard look bad and minimizing his or her own personal guilt. I used that as something to consider when judging the likelihood that an expelled instructor is telling the truth about the expulsion. I have never even met someone who had been expelled, let alone judged the accuracy of their stories.

 

[Wookie]

Fair enough, Frank... but I bet you still feel that the instructor exercised poor, poor judgement on that fatal dive.

If I were assigning blame, I'd blame the instructor 80% for his horrible lapse in judgement. The question is, do we allow instructors who have a track record of poor judgement the ability to remain instructors, or do we tighten the standards so that we take the judgement from instructors, which is what this thread has gone to? You (someone with good judgement) would never find yourself in the situation that instructor did, because you just wouldn't teach that way. But I think it's been established that an agency will only take away your ability to teach (expel you) if you bring disrepute or liability on the agency. If you just show poor judgement (as this very instructor did the day before) you will be allowed to continue teaching until you meet the criteria as set earlier.