Gilless:
Well I guess my students (and the students of the few instructors that I know personally) are outside your bell curve. None of them have had a bad experience during OW cert dives and those that did certify have not had a bad experience post cert that I am aware of. But I am a rookie instructor so the data set is small, but growing all the time.
Quite a few of my early students had bad experiences. None of it was because I did a lousy job of teaching on purpose. I did the best I could based on what I had been taught and I NEVER violated standards. My own wife had some pretty tough times as a new diver and I think I've posted more than a couple interesting stories from those days. In all that, nobody was hurt seriously but it was darned close a few times and I've had the chance to perform more rescues than I think anybody should really have to.
Ditto and excellent post Pete - and I am PADI and I don't see anything in the standards that prevents me from turning out decent new divers. It is "my" definition of what a decent new diver is as well
There isn't anything in the styandards that prevents you from teaching a good course, however, there isn't anything that requires it either.
You have to consider what the product is of a course that only meets the minimum requirements. Then this diver becomes an instructor and what are they going to teach? They're going to teach those same minimums and they probably won't even know they're minimums. Where exactly would they learn all the stuff that wasn't required? They can't teach it because they don't know it.
The best divers turned out by the best instructors will loose it if they don't dive often and if they don't continue to practice. (btw I consider myself an average instructor)
Of course, but you can't lose what you never had.
BTW, I don't even consider myself an average instructor. It took me so long to pout some of this together that it would be silly for me to be anything but ashamed. So much of it seems so obvious in hindsight but lots of us fall into the same trap. Sometimes it takes an awful lot to get us to the point where we will question those who we had assumed to be experts.
I remember attending a PADI member update when I was a fairly inexperienced instructor. They were rolling out the "Dive Today Philosophy" stuff and there was a room full of irate and very vocal opponents. I thought those old grouches were just a bunch of malcontents who really needed to get over themselves and listen to those who know. Like an idiot, I opened my mouth in support. Of course, looking back, I see that I had my ear turned toward the wrong side of the room. I should have paid a lot more attention to the old grouches. They were the instructors who were actually out doing this stuff every day while the guy at the podium was marketing a bunch of nonsensical BS. This may be a whole different topic but that "Dive today" stuff necessarily makes a real mess out of the required sequence skills are taught in. To start, what sense does it make to take someone on an OW dive to depths up to 40 ft immediately after CF 1 when neutral buoyancy isn't taught until CW 3? Neutral buoyancy at the surface, ascents and descents not taught until CW 2? How are you really supposed to teach UW swimming in CW 1 when all the buoyancy stuff isn't introduced until later? I actually baught into that nonsense, though looking back, I can't hardly imagine myself doing so.
Forget some of the situations I put regular customers in and forget what my wife went through because I took her to the same shop I got certified through. I used that "Dive Today" sequence when I certified my daughter. She hurt her ears, got scared to death and she has made exactly one dive since being certified. I thought I knew what I was doing because I believed that PADI knew what they were doing. Well, they don't and I didn't and I damned near killed my own daughter.
