Giving Away Dive Instructor Certifications.

[NJDevil]

Does anyone else feel like the requirements to becoming a certified dive instructor are a bit low or can be achieved in too short a time?

I constantly read on how divers withing a few months even weeks after their first time diving go and become dive instructors where most of their dives are done in the class to becomming a dive instructor. Even most who fake thier minimum dives just so they can get into the classes.

Not trying to offend anyone especially instructors but there are some things that just come with time and experience.

I feel OW instructors can get certified in the carribean or parts where there is clear water for visual reasons but I believe they must ALSO BE CERTIFIED FOR THE STATE THEY ARE TRAINING OTHERS.

Certainly diving in New Jersey or New York is significantly different from diving in tropical waters that is like a swimming pool. It disturbes me to hear the guy has been diving for a short time and runs down to florida and is now an instructor when diving conditions are significantly different. How are you prepared for the areas when all you dive is a swimming pool environment.

I hear more and more about trainers being narced and hyperventilating and doing other unusual things and not responding properly to these situations.

Anyone else feel the same or different to give me a better feeling about OW instructor training of what I consider newbs?

 

[cnctina]

Welcome to PADI.

 

[Doc Intrepid]

Does anyone else feel like the requirements to becoming a certified dive instructor are a bit low or can be achieved in too short a time? ...Anyone else feel the same or different to give me a better feeling about OW instructor training of what I consider newbs?

Yes. Quite a few on SB feel the same. What is likely a minority feel differently.

I see you joined us last month. Welcome to the board.

It might surprise you to discover that your issue has also been noted previously by others.

In fact, heated debates have occurred previously regarding this very topic. They're now in the archives, where you'll be able to find additional data including anecdotes, lawsuits, fatalities, and lots of colorful invective pounded down on keyboards all over with annoyance and/or scorn

Checkout the command bar under where it says "Welcome, NJDevil" at the top right hand of the page, third button from the right is Search. Click on advanced search. Start scanning using keywords like PADI, YMCA, Instructor Training, lawsuits, etc.

Better make lunch first. There's quite a few threads on the topic over the past three years or so, and I suspect you'll find quite a bit of reading. (Few definitive conclusions, tho'...)

(Try not to resurrect too many old threads! And, you may want to fill out your profile - it puts your comments into context and allows others to relate to or answer your questions in a more useful way.)

Oh, and I'm a PADI instructor circa 1984. Don't have a clue how it goes today, but in 1984 they weren't giving them away. I had to agree to apprentice myself as a divemaster to an instructor for the shop for 1 year, for free, all courses, before I was eligible to take the IDC. My course director was Pete Peterson, who ran Micronesian Divers Association (MDA) on Guam, in the Marianas Islands. The course directors I had the privilege of working with were quality guys who were genuinely focused on what they saw as a safe future for diving. But that was 20 years ago, who knows where its at currently...

Best with your research,

Doc

 

[pt40fathoms]

Flight instructors are often low time pilots who are trying to build up time.

Driving instructors are seldom drivers who have logged thousands of miles in a big rig.

School teachers are all young individuals who learned to teach right out of high school.

Doctors who treat patients often learn as they go, not everything they come across is covered in med school.

Thanks to cnctina, we have had our obligatory PADI bashing statement once again here on SB.


To all of those out there who live in dream land, here's a news flash for you; every teacher, instructor, leader out there, was at one time new to what ever job they are doing right now. I know this is a shocker that they are not born with the genetic knowledge of the ages, but I'm sure you'll learn to accept this failing in time.

 

[Jim Ernst]

Flight instructors are often low time pilots who are trying to build up time.

Driving instructors are seldom drivers who have logged thousands of miles in a big rig.

School teachers are all young individuals who learned to teach right out of high school.

Doctors who treat patients often learn as they go, not everything they come across is covered in med school.

Thanks to cnctina, we have had our obligatory PADI bashing statement once again here on SB.


To all of those out there who live in dream land, here's a news flash for you; every teacher, instructor, leader out there, was at one time new to what ever job they are doing right now. I know this is a shocker that they are not born with the genetic knowledge of the ages, but I'm sure you'll learn to accept this failing in time.

i agree with you here as i am a DMC and have been doing all of the othere courses as my instructor requires, barry (my instructor) is a rewal stickler for the rules and regs, and i am not being given anything for free or a free ride on my way to instructor, i know that may be differant with some , but NOT ALL p.a.d.i falls in that category as was mentioned in the post above by cnctina!!

 

[valligurl]

I just had a conversation with a young girl (around 20 yo)who told me she's training to become an instructor. She goes to college in Hawaii. At first, I thought she may have been a pretty experienced diver. As we talked, I started to wonder. I finally asked how many dives she had...her response....15 -20. :icoeek:


I have about 120, and there's no way I feel ready to become an instructor. And it would frighten me to death for an inexperienced friend to learn from someone like that.

 

[Azza]

Does anyone else feel like the requirements to becoming a certified dive instructor are a bit low or can be achieved in too short a time?



I agree with you to an extent. There are courses here in NZ where a diver can go from Open Water to Open Water Scuba Instructor in just 12 weeks, and get a student loan off the government to do it!

I for one have been vocal in the local industry against this and have suffered some backlash. A shop I used to work for that ran similar courses turned from treating me as one of the family to an outcast and even damaged a manifold that I had sent them to service for me. I have had others try and discredit me but luckily the shop I now work for knows its all crap.


I constantly read on how divers withing a few months even weeks after their first time diving go and become dive instructors where most of their dives are done in the class to becomming a dive instructor. Even most who fake thier minimum dives just so they can get into the classes.

A mate I did my Divemaster course with decided that he wanted to become an instructor soon after he was certified as a Divemaster but he only had 76 dives. The requirement is 100 before you can be certified. So he asked me if I wanted to go diving to help him get his dives up. Being a good mate is said sure lets get into it, thinking he meant going out on a boat and doing some good “sink ya teeth into it” dives.

Uh uh. His idea was to go to a local lake, so that he didn’t have to pay boat fees, and sit on the bottom for 20 minutes, then come up for 5 minutes, then sink down for another 20…

I only dived once with him. I just can’t agree with divers doing that as there is a reason why you must have 100 dives (In fact I would like to see the dive limit raised) and apart from that it’s just plain boring. He wouldn’t even do skills or go for a swim around or anything!
He did 24 "dives" in a week.

I feel OW instructors can get certified in the carribean or parts where there is clear water for visual reasons but I believe they must ALSO BE CERTIFIED FOR THE STATE THEY ARE TRAINING OTHERS.

Certainly diving in New Jersey or New York is significantly different from diving in tropical waters that is like a swimming pool. It disturbes me to hear the guy has been diving for a short time and runs down to florida and is now an instructor when diving conditions are significantly different. How are you prepared for the areas when all you dive is a swimming pool environment.

That could be a logistical nightmare and would most likely need government regulation. Lets forget about governments having anything to do with diving, they can’t even run a country let alone a dive industry.
The other point is, what about travelling instructors, or instructors that say might take a trip or class on a trip away? Our store takes trips all over the country to do courses in different locations so our students have a wide varied dive life.
I also think that if you have been diving enough, you can easily adapt to different environments and locations easily.

Anyone else feel the same or different to give me a better feeling about OW instructor training of what I consider newbs?


When I did my IDC I had been away from working as a Divemaster for a year. I was burnt out and decided to go diving for myself and did a lot more technical type diving and forgot about the recreational side until I made the Decision to become an instructor. This decision was based on the reasoning that I thought a lot of recreational instructor I had met were not IMHO up to the task, so I decided to get in and hopefully be able to offer better quality instruction.
I started worrying that because I had been away from it for so long that I would find the IDC and IE hard.

Nope. The IDC was a challenge at first simply because I had to get back into the PADI way of doing things again. No more deep stops, ditch the long hose, single tanks, gotta dive within NDL’s… you get the picture.

However my IDC was a lot of fun although the lesson planning was a little different (I had previously been an instructor in the Army) to what I was used to due to having to sell equipment and continuing education course in every presentation.


However the IE was a breeze and a lot of fun. I was surprised at some who passed however. IMHO there were about 3 who passed that shouldn’t have but they hit all the points that they were supposed to and therefore got the tick.
I and another guy from my IDC were the only ones that really had fun as we were the only ones that had worked as Divemasters (I was a Divemaster for 3.5 years) and the only ones who were truly prepared for it.

 

[Divesherpa]

As to the statement on location, I began teaching in Alaska. Should I re-cert to teach in Florida?

What about teaching on vacations?

 

[gjmmotors]

Certainly diving in New Jersey or New York is significantly different from diving in tropical waters that is like a swimming pool. It disturbes me to hear the guy has been diving for a short time and runs down to florida and is now an instructor when diving conditions are significantly different. How are you prepared for the areas when all you dive is a swimming pool environment.

Yes diving in NJ or NY is different.
I dove for a short time 4 or 5 years, ran down to florida and became an instructor. How did I prepare for nj diving? I woke up at an ungodly hour, drove down the shore and paid a hundred bucks to go out on a two tank dive. Got off the boat and fought the benny traffic on the way back home. The difficult parts were paying the 100 bucks to see brown and green water surronding a wreck and driving home.
-gm

 

[billmach]

when I went looking to get my OW cert. I did alot of shopping around and feeling out dive instructors. one guy who offered to cert me in a private class
wanted me to go online and take a scuba classoom course he recomended.
I checked it out just to see it and the test was bunk! anytime you got a question wrong all you had to do go back one page and it reset the module. you could do that
as often as you liked until it gave you 100%. thats totally wrong NO STUDY NEEDED!
When I called him to ask him why he would appove of this he said thats what he did 6 weeks earlier??????? and this guy is an instructor?????? Oh and by the way he was NAUI and so is the 7 module test. I thankfully went to a local LDS and got certified
by an awesome PADI trainer.No short cuts .
So I really dont think it has to do with the certifing agency
It has to do with the competence of the instructor.