Fun as a Training Standard...

[The Chairman]

To be clear, I generally have a two to three hour discussion/lecture with my students before we get wet. We cover safety, signals, the physics of diving (trim, buoyancy & propulsion), tissue groups (safety stops), listening for your buddy and what to expect from the class. Even here, I aim to keep things fun and moving right along. Why not? There's no need to waste anyone's time: theirs or mine. In the water, I try to speak as little as possible. It's monkey see/monkey do. Why describe a complex task when I can show them? If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a demonstration is worth a bazillion.

 

[Wookie]

Hmmm. I learned most of what I know about balloons, goats, tables, caisson workers, and a whole host of other things in Open Water, so I came to DM with a good understanding. I had a most excellent instructor, although he taught on our knees. We had buoyancy skills after having non-buoyancy skills, and staying down with the correct weighting was sometimes a challenge, but we got through it. And most of it was fun.

So I get your point, you want it to be fun, and not teach on your knees. I want a well rounded individual who doesn't show up on my boat and doesn't understand why his computer is beeping at him, and place fun secondary to safety.

How do we (as an industry) reconcile this, and I suspect that's what your buddy Richard Black was coming from? Training HAS been dumbed down in the interest of having fun. You don't see an issue with that, as you think that it should be all about fun, and the well rounded education is "skills they can't use right away".

You are making vacation divers, I want life long divers. There has to be a meeting somewhere in the middle. I don't teach, BTW, because I can't compete with fun.

 

[txgoose]

How do you teach deco theory then? Or tables? Or Haldane?

I'm guessing you don't, maybe in pursuit of fun?

I have read both “Regulator Savvy” and “Regulator Maint and Repair” cover to cover. Because I enjoyed the knowledge. If someone at the tech level can’t figure out where their scuba pleasure is coming from.................

 

[The Chairman]

The same folks who ruin OW training by churning out poorly trained divers to the bare minimum standards are the same ones who give me pause about a "Fun" standard.

A poorly trained diver can not have fun. Out of control, they dive in constant fear of crashing into the bottom or taking the express train to the surface. These are white knuckle divers, and their training, as well as their subsequent dives will be a mix of abject fear/panic and feelings of incompetence. I can guarantee they were bored in their classes and never challenged to excellence. Not my, or my students' idea of fun.

 

[Wookie]

I have read both “Regulator Savvy” and “Regulator Maint and Repair” cover to cover. Because I enjoyed the knowledge. If someone at the tech level can’t figure out where their scuba pleasure is coming from.................

Sure, but how a regulator works may also be above and beyond the knowledge requirements for a fun OW class. I was taught on a balanced first unbalanced second that I owned before class, and my instructor gave me an in depth explanation of the workings, although I retained less than he taught.

Have you studied gas laws and bubble mechanics and isobaric counterdiffusion with the same vigor as regulator savviness?

I'm not slagging you off, far from it. I offer kudos for going beyond a fun class and delving into the mysteries of how the damn air supply device works.

 

[The Chairman]

Training HAS been dumbed down in the interest of having fun.

You're confusing fun with taking shortcuts. Today's "dumb" training is the result of laziness and incompetence combined with a lack of imagination. Students only have so much time they are willing to commit to learning the craft. You can either shortcut what they learn or change the way you teach to be much more efficient. I see too many classes where the majority of time the students are only blowing bubbles underwater. My first task is to make them trim, then neutral and then progress their learning skills while horizontal. You claim this makes only vacation divers, and I disagree. Divers who are actually in control of their diving will have far more fun and will dive more than divers who are in constant fear. A fun dive is one where YOU are in control.

I don't teach, BTW, because I can't compete with fun.

Probably it's because you can't compete with shortcuts. Fun is not simply not learning. Incompetent divers can't have fun.

 

[The Chairman]

A huge contributor to that foundation, IMO, will be patience.

I agree with this. I am an impatient person on many levels, but not when it comes to teaching Scuba. There's no need to scream at your students, no need to belittle them and definitely no need to discourage them in any way. Catch them doing something right and you'll get them to do that right all the time. Only tell them what they're doing wrong, and they still have no idea what "right" looks like. Monkey see: monkey do. Set the example all the time. Don't show off by flipping over on your back, swimming while looking at your students. I mean, you wouldn't want them swimming that way, would you? Dip your head and look between your fins in the same way you want them to do.

 

[Lorenzoid]

Hmm. The end goal of (non-commercial) dive training should be having fun--no doubt about that. But I'm not sure how "fun" dive training itself can be, or should be. It shouldn't be drudgery, but on the other hand you need to get through the material. Is dive training really that different from any other training that offers a skill for life? Few people who learned to play a musical instrument thought it was fun at the time, but the payoff came later. I can hardly remember a class I took in school that I thought was fun at the time--very few. I suspect some of my teachers thought they were doing their best to make it fun for us, but we students probably didn't perceive the "fun" that the teacher did.

 

[Jack Hammer]

A poorly trained diver can not have fun. Out of control, they dive in constant fear of crashing into the bottom or taking the express train to the surface. These are white knuckle divers, and their training, as well as their subsequent dives will be a mix of abject fear/panic and feelings of incompetence. I can guarantee they were bored in their classes and never challenged to excellence. Not my, or my students' idea of fun.

That's one side of the spectrum, luckily those types don't typically stick with it. Unfortunately I've seen more of the opposite, incompetant and unaware divers having "Fun" just like they learned in training... kicking everything in site, damaging coral, kneeling, knocking chunks off stuff they're grasping onto for that wide armed "look at me, I'm a Scuba diver having Fun" pose for the camera...

 

[txgoose]

Sure, but how a regulator works may also be above and beyond the knowledge requirements for a fun OW class.

But the deco tables you mentioned aren't???

I was taught on a balanced first unbalanced second that I owned before class, and my instructor gave me an in depth explanation of the workings, although I retained less than he taught.

Have you studied gas laws and bubble mechanics and isobaric counterdiffusion with the same vigor as regulator savviness?

I have not. I am still practicing trim and buoyancy to limit my sculling, and deploying an DSMB at depth.

I'm not slagging you off, far from it. I offer kudos for going beyond a fun class and delving into the mysteries of how the damn air supply device works.

Dude, you have been in this industry for a loooooong long time. You have much respect from me. I appreciate the time and information you give to the board. I only commented/engaged because it appeared to me that you felt fun and safety were mutually exclusive. My wife, who I hope is now a life long diver that you're looking for, would not be here today without an instructors willingness to be flexible in his delivery.