"Family of drowned Tennessee diver sues dive shop"

[CuzzA]

I have 20 hours of mandatory CE every two years in my profession. I'm very engaged in what I do, so I don't find it very beneficial personally, but certainly see it as beneficial for someone who doesn't stay up to date on the latest.

 

[Wookie]

No, I am not mad. At all. But, I confess, your post seemed to be a bit of a boast. And, I would not necessarily boast of this.

Also, having said that, I do think I understand your point, and I actually am sympathetic to the issue you raise. PADI - or any other training agency for that matter - can make A LOT of information available to Instructors / Dive Professionals. But, that doesn't mean they access it / take advantage of it / use it to remain current. That is very lamentable. I - personally and individually - would prefer that my renewal of Instructor credentials involve some documentation of continued professional development. That is the case in my health profession. That is also the case in my credentialing as a pilot - I have to undergo an actual biannual flight review, including time in the air. I do not believe that the scuba instruction 'profession' has yet adopted that mindset. I wish they would - PADI, NAUI, SDI/TDI, etc. I understand (second hand) that GUE has, and I say, 'Kudos to them!'

At the same time, I also appreciate the state of maturity of the dive instruction 'profession'. And, while it (really) annoys me that instructors DO NOT always take advantage of opportunities to continue their development, that annoyance is my load to bear.

Millions of people in the US drive automobiles for many years after licensure, with very limited requirements for recurrency training, beyond an eye test (or a written examination if you have been guilty of an in fraction in the immediate prior renewal period). I suspect that is probably a much more significant public health issue than scuba instructors who fail to maintain currency.

I have specifically not called out any particular training agency, because they are all guilty. It's a race to the bottom. Many think I hate PADI because I are one. I do not. I don't find PADI any better or worse than any other training agency. In my opinion none of the training agencies give their newest and youngest instructors the tools they need to be excellent instructors. None of them require any con-ed to maintain any sort of proficiency.

But if you tell me how good your agency is, I will argue, because none of them are "good". I don't see a gold standard and a bunch of also rans, I just see also rans. And you have to remember where I'm coming from. I get the result of bad instruction. I run liveaboards, have as a professional for 20 years, I make my living at it. That's why I'm an instructor, not for some ravenous desire to teach (and I applaud those that do), but because it's a condition of the boat insurance policy. I am the recipient of the lousy instruction I see. I get to teach folks how to put their regulator on their tank. I have to take 10-20 lbs of lead off of my divers. I have to do it slowly, over the course of a week, because their OW instructor (you pick the flavor) told them that's how much lead they needed. When they learn to dive with 12 lbs and their air consumption is cut in half, great, we all celebrate, but it wasn't necessary to overweight them in the first place. But because they were overweighted in OW class, then it must be the right thing to do. I used to get deckhands out of a famous instructor mill in Marathon FL that came to my boat as crew who wore 24 lbs in a 3 mil and aluminum tank. This is crappy instruction, folks, pure and simple. And that instructor mill will present you with whichever instructor certificate you want, once you find a job at a dive shop. Don't ask me how they make it work, I thought a Examiner had to come from HQ to issue your credentials, but I've been told by more than one graduate that you don't get your creds until you work for a dive shop, and then you get the creds to match the flavor of shop.

So I see this as a race to the bottom. You want to explain how your agency is better, I'll show you how it's the same. Even NAUI had an outstanding reputation for excellence when I started. Hopefully they will get it back.

 

[kris@bulldogg.ca]

Interesting. I have been a member in good standing for 20 years. Got my pin and glass participation trophy just this year. I have neither a logon to the website, nor have I ever attended a member forum. I am operating on the information I got in 1996. I am a member in good standing, however, and have never been filed on nor been involved in a reportable incident. I could teach tomorrow if I chose. Your argument has no merit. Next?

I am no expert, I myself am not a scuba instructor, and I am only a recent dive master, so I don't intend to question your experience and I mean no offence, but I think you are quick to dismiss this argument.

If you are a member in good standing as you have stated, you have agreed to the member code of practice, which clearly states:

Knowledge – Assess your knowledge readiness to teach or lead divers on any given day – to make sure that you are familiar with the standards, latest updates and teaching tools for that PADI program; and that you’re aware of the readiness and abilities of your student divers.
​

My understanding is that by referring to yourself as a member in good standing that could teach tomorrow you would assume the onus to ensure you are using up to date information, and to ensure you maintain your access to them.

 

[Wookie]

Well played. And that's why I WOULDN'T teach tomorrow, or any other day.

 

[boulderjohn]

I have to take 10-20 lbs of lead off of my divers. I have to do it slowly, over the course of a week, because their OW instructor (you pick the flavor) told them that's how much lead they needed. When they learn to dive with 12 lbs and their air consumption is cut in half, great, we all celebrate, but it wasn't necessary to overweight them in the first place. But because they were overweighted in OW class, then it must be the right thing to do. I used to get deckhands out of a famous instructor mill in Marathon FL that came to my boat as crew who wore 24 lbs in a 3 mil and aluminum tank. This is crappy instruction, folks, pure and simple. And that instructor mill will present you with whichever instructor certificate you want, once you find a job at a dive shop.

With this I fully agree, and I think you know I have been on a crusade for years to do away with this practice. That crusade has had a positive effect. I led a group that got an article published on this topic in the PADI professional journal (which you don't read, apparently), and that article (and the discussions we had leading up to its final draft) led to PADI changing its instructional materials to recommend that all instruction be done while neutrally buoyant and in horizontal trim rather than on the knees. In the first annual regional session I attended after that, the regional director rhapsodized at length about much better the students turn out when they are taught off the knees. Unfortunately, they only recommended it, and most instructors are sticking to what they have always done. The instructor mills you talk about are the biggest offenders, and I had a long talk with PADI headquarters last year in which I was told why it was true.

As it was explained to me, the instructor mills guarantee that their students will pass the Instructor Exam, and to make that happen they have developed very precise ways of doing things over the years. They have looked at every required skill and thought of everything an instructor examiner might be looking for in a skill. They put all those possibilities into the skills they teach their students. That creates overly elaborate and unnecessary processes on which the students are drilled and drilled and drilled and drilled until they can do it perfectly. The person to whom I spoke, an instructor examiner himself, said that if you were to line up all the instructor candidates from a program like that and have them start a skill at the same time, it would look like a synchronized swimming event.

Except there would be no swimming. In order to do skills that way while on the knees, the diver must not only be overweighted, the diver must be significantly overweighted. When I instruct, I am a little overweighted so I can deal more effectively with any potential problem with a student. When I posed for the pictures for the aforementioned PADI article, I was weighted as I normally am when doing the skills in horizontal trim. Then I had to pose for the pictures on the knees, which I had not done in many years, and I could not do them. I had to pile on the weight in order to stay solidly anchored to the floor of the pool.

So why was I having this conversation with PADI? It sprang from an experience at the shop where I was then teaching OW classes. The shop had hired a recent graduate of an instructor mill at Roatan to be its director if instruction, and he was insisting that we require our divemaster candidates to do the elaborate choreography (heavily weighted and on the knees) he had learned in that program. He even insisted that doing some of the skills the way I did it violated standards. If I wanted to work with the DMCs, I would have to do it that way. I contacted PADI to ask about the standards part, and I was told that everything I was doing was perfectly fine; in fact, what I was doing was much preferred. The way the mills teach their students was still acceptable, though, and it was up to the shop to determine how we were to teach. It was up to me to decide if I was willing to compromise to meet their rules. I chose not to work under those conditions.

So, PADI prefers that its students not be taught the way they are, but until they require that instructors stop teaching skills on the knees, things will not change all that much. At least they have taken that first step of recommending it. I don't know what any of the other agencies have done in this regard. I do know that the person now in charge of instruction for the North Americas for SSI recently crossed over from PADI. He was my Course Director when I developed my methodology, and he was a signer of the article we published. When he saw how much better students learned using that methodology, he required it of all instructors in the shop in which he was then working. I therefore would guess that SSI will be making a change at some point.

 

[cerich]

With this I fully agree, and I think you know I have been on a crusade for years to do away with this practice. That crusade has had a positive effect. I led a group that got an article published on this topic in the PADI professional journal (which you don't read, apparently), and that article (and the discussions we had leading up to its final draft) led to PADI changing its instructional materials to recommend that all instruction be done while neutrally buoyant and in horizontal trim rather than on the knees. In the first annual regional session I attended after that, the regional director rhapsodized at length about much better the students turn out when they are taught off the knees. Unfortunately, they only recommended it, and most instructors are sticking to what they have always done. The instructor mills you talk about are the biggest offenders, and I had a long talk with PADI headquarters last year in which I was told why it was true.

As it was explained to me, the instructor mills guarantee that their students will pass the Instructor Exam, and to make that happen they have developed very precise ways of doing things over the years. They have looked at every required skill and thought of everything an instructor examiner might be looking for in a skill. They put all those possibilities into the skills they teach their students. That creates overly elaborate and unnecessary processes on which the students are drilled and drilled and drilled and drilled until they can do it perfectly. The person to whom I spoke, an instructor examiner himself, said that if you were to line up all the instructor candidates from a program like that and have them start a skill at the same time, it would look like a synchronized swimming event.

Except there would be no swimming. In order to do skills that way while on the knees, the diver must not only be overweighted, the diver must be significantly overweighted. When I instruct, I am a little overweighted so I can deal more effectively with any potential problem with a student. When I posed for the pictures for the aforementioned PADI article, I was weighted as I normally am when doing the skills in horizontal trim. Then I had to pose for the pictures on the knees, which I had not done in many years, and I could not do them. I had to pile on the weight in order to stay solidly anchored to the floor of the pool.

So why was I having this conversation with PADI? It sprang from an experience at the shop where I was then teaching OW classes. The shop had hired a recent graduate of an instructor mill at Roatan to be its director if instruction, and he was insisting that we require our divemaster candidates to do the elaborate choreography (heavily weighted and on the knees) he had learned in that program. He even insisted that doing some of the skills the way I did it violated standards. If I wanted to work with the DMCs, I would have to do it that way. I contacted PADI to ask about the standards part, and I was told that everything I was doing was perfectly fine; in fact, what I was doing was much preferred. The way the mills teach their students was still acceptable, though, and it was up to the shop to determine how we were to teach. It was up to me to decide if I was willing to compromise to meet their rules. I chose not to work under those conditions.

So, PADI prefers that its students not be taught the way they are, but until they require that instructors stop teaching skills on the knees, things will not change all that much. At least they have taken that first step of recommending it. I don't know what any of the other agencies have done in this regard. I do know that the person now in charge of instruction for the North Americas for SSI recently crossed over from PADI. He was my Course Director when I developed my methodology, and he was a signer of the article we published. When he saw how much better students learned using that methodology, he required it of all instructors in the shop in which he was then working. I therefore would guess that SSI will be making a change at some point.

You know, and this is not just PADI BTW, it honestly disgusts me that agencies will basically allow whatever the instructor mills want because the instructor mills are BIG business.

If student (in this case not just the instructor student but their eventually students in general) outcome and SAFETY was the number 1 goal then something would happen.

What you just described, while it may make you feel warm and fuzzy, is disgusting to me.

If the standard is not to overweight your students yet because a instructor mill feels it is needed they overlook it and even are able to "explain" it to you (a instructor that knows better), and it is SO COMMON That instructors believe that not over weighting students and teaching neutral is actually a standards violation...well Houston we have a serious problem.

Basically, your post laid out the case that @Wookie and others have been trying to make. You proved it.|

 

[boulderjohn]

It does not make me feel warm and fuzzy at all. I think they have to make a stand.

But at least they have done something.

Perhaps they need to see a good example to get them going. I did the best I could as a mere PADI instructor,as i described above. Perhaps you should describe what you did when you were on the board of directors for NAUI to get them to require this kind of instruction in that organization.

 

[Wookie]

With this I fully agree, and I think you know I have been on a crusade for years to do away with this practice. That crusade has had a positive effect. I led a group that got an article published on this topic in the PADI professional journal (which you don't read, apparently), and that article (and the discussions we had leading up to its final draft) led to PADI changing its instructional materials to recommend that all instruction be done while neutrally buoyant and in horizontal trim rather than on the knees. In the first annual regional session I attended after that, the regional director rhapsodized at length about much better the students turn out when they are taught off the knees. Unfortunately, they only recommended it, and most instructors are sticking to what they have always done. The instructor mills you talk about are the biggest offenders, and I had a long talk with PADI headquarters last year in which I was told why it was true.

As it was explained to me, the instructor mills guarantee that their students will pass the Instructor Exam, and to make that happen they have developed very precise ways of doing things over the years. They have looked at every required skill and thought of everything an instructor examiner might be looking for in a skill. They put all those possibilities into the skills they teach their students. That creates overly elaborate and unnecessary processes on which the students are drilled and drilled and drilled and drilled until they can do it perfectly. The person to whom I spoke, an instructor examiner himself, said that if you were to line up all the instructor candidates from a program like that and have them start a skill at the same time, it would look like a synchronized swimming event.

Except there would be no swimming. In order to do skills that way while on the knees, the diver must not only be overweighted, the diver must be significantly overweighted. When I instruct, I am a little overweighted so I can deal more effectively with any potential problem with a student. When I posed for the pictures for the aforementioned PADI article, I was weighted as I normally am when doing the skills in horizontal trim. Then I had to pose for the pictures on the knees, which I had not done in many years, and I could not do them. I had to pile on the weight in order to stay solidly anchored to the floor of the pool.

So why was I having this conversation with PADI? It sprang from an experience at the shop where I was then teaching OW classes. The shop had hired a recent graduate of an instructor mill at Roatan to be its director if instruction, and he was insisting that we require our divemaster candidates to do the elaborate choreography (heavily weighted and on the knees) he had learned in that program. He even insisted that doing some of the skills the way I did it violated standards. If I wanted to work with the DMCs, I would have to do it that way. I contacted PADI to ask about the standards part, and I was told that everything I was doing was perfectly fine; in fact, what I was doing was much preferred. The way the mills teach their students was still acceptable, though, and it was up to the shop to determine how we were to teach. It was up to me to decide if I was willing to compromise to meet their rules. I chose not to work under those conditions.

So, PADI prefers that its students not be taught the way they are, but until they require that instructors stop teaching skills on the knees, things will not change all that much. At least they have taken that first step of recommending it. I don't know what any of the other agencies have done in this regard. I do know that the person now in charge of instruction for the North Americas for SSI recently crossed over from PADI. He was my Course Director when I developed my methodology, and he was a signer of the article we published. When he saw how much better students learned using that methodology, he required it of all instructors in the shop in which he was then working. I therefore would guess that SSI will be making a change at some point.

So the first instructor mill was in Nacadoches, Texas. They are the only facility I have had real interaction with, as I watched my wife do her IE with students from that facility, and actually observed parts of the IE, not the pool or tests or lectures, but the open water portion. The vis in Blue Lagoon was feet to inches that day. Let me pass along some observations.

Every student "drowned" their victim during the rescue. When I was taught to be an instructor 20 years ago, we were taught first and foremost to protect the airway. Still, that is the hardest part of the rescue to me is making sure that the diver's breathing orifices never go underwater. So in an IE with 25 candidates, every candidate failed to protect the airway, IMO. I wasn't 3 feet away, I was on the bank. When the victim coughs, spits, and hacks, I consider that the airway has not been maintained properly. No candidate had to do a do-over.

I did not observe this, but I was told that a candidate could not do the hover. Remember, this was back in the day before you got the rules for neutral buoyancy changed, so all candidates were on their knees. On a platform in this case. The problem given the victim was to not be able to hover. Problem turned out the victim actually couldn't hover. The Examiner pulled the victim out of the circle, taught them to hover, and they hovered. In the exam.

Of the original 30 in the class, 5 failed the exam. All 5 got retests. They failed again. Physics and physiology. Who sends a candidate to a test without them being prepared? Oh, a CDC would.

So I think we can agree that our poorest instructors are coming out of CDC/instructor mills. Not all instructor mills are CDCs. It doesn't matter if the mill is in Roatan, Marathon, Fort Lauderdale (gone now), Nacadoches, or where it is, it seems that the quality of the instructor coming out of those places is not the same as you or I might have had, in a class of 8 or less with a single CD and a IDC staffer.

If it's clear to you and me, why isn't it clear to any training agency who might sponsor the instructor mill concept. And if the majority of the poor instructors come from facilities like that, why don't the sponsoring agencies shut them down or at least provide extra scrutiny to lessen their own liability? Because I assure you, the training agenies will continue to be sued over what their instructors do. I agree that an instructor does not represent their agency, nor are they an "agent" of that agency. But the agency is the one who can control what the instructor does. Especially if the agency allows independent instructors, then they are the only people who can control what the instructor does.

Again, I am not pointing out any single agency. They are all as bad as the others.

 

[kelemvor]

If the standard is not to overweight your students yet because a instructor mill feels it is needed they overlook it and even are able to "explain" it to you (a instructor that knows better), and it is SO COMMON That instructors believe that not over weighting students and teaching neutral is actually a standards violation...well Houston we have a serious problem.

Not an instructor, but for such a thing to be possible that says to me that there is indeed a problem. The problem is that agency standards are not known by all instructors (or students). They should be published for all to see. When I sign up for a course at the local university, the instructor provides me class standards on day one. Not exactly so with a scuba class. You get a book with information, but no list of what the standards are. I guess instructors get a list of standards when they take their instructor class.

Then you have to keep instructors up to date as standards change. Which, according to Wookiee isn't happening either. In the case of the website he's never logged into, perhaps an online class there that is required with each annual renewal is an easy solution.

I know nobody wants regulation in scuba, but if people are dying and the agencies aren't jumping on obvious solutions of information dissemination... well that is the sort of thing that causes regulations to become necessary.

 

[Wookie]

Not an instructor, but for such a thing to be possible that says to me that there is indeed a problem. The problem is that agency standards are not known by all instructors (or students). They should be published for all to see. When I sign up for a course at the local university, the instructor provides me class standards on day one. Not exactly so with a scuba class. You get a book with information, but no list of what the standards are. I guess instructors get a list of standards when they take their instructor class.

I think that agencies don't publish their standards not because they have anything to hide, but then uncontrolled copies are out there in the world and folks would be arguing about which standard to follow.

I get a DVD copy of the instructor manual every year with renewal.