Have training standards "slipped"?

[Hank49]

You guys look a whole lot better than we did.

You do look good Mark....especially the hair...

 

[Azza]

You do look good Mark....especially the hair...

The hair

 

[Thalassamania]

My point exactly the market caused the push for shorter programs. The "I-Want -it-Now- Programs> Shop owners wanted clients to come into the shop. Buy, Buy, Buy. They wanted shorter courses, people were asking for it and the market responded. This carries on today with the newly introduced on-line courses. More flexibility, higher client/customer servicing. Come in get it done get diving.

No. People were not asking for it. PADI, NASDS and SSI were saying to the shop owners, “you’d make more money if …” and the owners were drooling. There was no pressure from the consumer until the ad campaigns hit.

This group is out there and many learn that it should be better then wehat it appears. Perhaps they offset the others. Unfortunately opne can not fault one agency over another because of their size. I see divers all the time who do not know how to fin correctly to the conditions or poor in buoyancy control and problem solving. It matters not that they hold a YMCA, NAUI, SSI , SDI, ACUC or IDEA or CMAS card the faults are present in all. Say what they may it is not the other instructor who can't teach divers to correct standards it all instructors. Some will improve because of dissatisfaction and others just don't get it.

Actually you can fault one agency here. PADI was the one that wrote the “fin pivot” into their material and actively taught/tested for it in classes and instructor programs.

The modular system is the way PADI grew and others followed. OW followed by AOW then rescue etc etc. It was not a system that divers developed. It was a system adapted into the way diving was to become. My wife has a Masters Degree in Educational Leadership. Much of what they talked of in school was that wasy the humans learn best. A progressional system where one level builds on the next. That is modular.

Then PADI’s “system” is not, by your definition, “modular.” Examples of this have been brought forward earlier in the thread, places where the base skill that is needed is not taught until after the subsequent skill is “mastered.” Modular in the PADI sense is nothing more then edu-babble for “deemphasize instructor skill and experience.”

Universities started using this approach back in the 1950's. Diving educators, correction John Cronin and his team aka PADI took this approach and developed the continuous diver education method, ...

No, most universities did not, but many “trade schools” did. Cronin, et. al. did not develop the “continuous diver education method” they ex-post-facto developed a system of “continuing education” that used different (smaller slices) than the courses the other agencies were advocating and they did so in the face of rejection of 18 hour courses by all of those who tested them accept the one PADI sycophant that was part of the group. I know … I was a tester and I sat in the room when all the reports were presented.

Many Agencies followed suit, reluctently for some but i the end it became the norm. Up North ACUC didn't develop their program until the mid seventies. They called the Star Developmental System. My OW course was before that and I must admit that I thought then divers were not getting it all up front. In the pool mind you the same skill sets and duration of training were to continue. To this day ACUC programs are considered some of the most demanding, longer courses out there. A point they take pride on and yet they are often by passed for shorter programs, Why is that?

Why do people eat at McDonald’s despite the data, both hard and anecdotal (“Supersize Me”) that it does damage to human beings. The ability of an advertisement to misdirect is stronger than the public’s ability to discern.

I think stated this before and again above. One can throw names out there but the truth is there were many people from around the world. In America it may have been the Al Hornsby and Nick Icorn's but there were others. Stated with no disrespect to any of the pioneers of diving from America. It was a global effect and I think PADI lead the way.

I may have missed a few of the folks working out of PADI HQ, but it was hardly a meeting of the best minds to diving dedicated to advancing the art. It was a meeting between some skilled diving instructors and some highly paid hucksters.

Today people jump on PADI and fail to see the over all systemic truth in what is considered a falling of standards. Not all divers are PADI divers yet the problems we discuss here, common to the body of all are often trageted against PADI. While NAUI and YMCA seem to escape the wrath we often forget that we see their diver students and those of SSI and SDI and others out there floundering about enjoying what they are doing- diving. No standards have adjusted, inpart to meet the demands of the market and the requests of the potential divers. This is not a uncommon concern many recreatation activities have seen the same results in their sports. The standards are there. Their interpretation by the instructors, the pressure by the scuba and recreatational markets and societies demand for faster and shorter have been the cause. This has just continued to be passed down as time goes on. For what it is worth the tech agencies may be facing the same delima soon enough.

I “jump on” PADI because they led the industry down the primrose path and they are the dominant force in the industry. Believe me I don’t hold the other agency’s in any particular extreme, they caved in. Quite frankly I have harsher words for NAUI and YMCA because they caved in when they knew better and should have taken a moral stance, but they were both basically gutless wonders, but a least they did not swallow the final poison pill of requiring certification with the successful completion of what I see as an abbreviated and inadequate class.

 

[stevewirl]

i agree with you mike ,

inthe courses there is not enough time or any 1 on 1 time allowed for . and Certain divers . not all but certain ones are useless . and this is what is teching our divers .

as ive said on another thread , i was diving in Eygpt ( fantastic ) and a dm's mask flooded at 25 meters . His response . to get to the surface ASAP .
now just think of how many inexperienced divers he has though or given addvice to on the boat returning from a dive site and couldnt even clear his own mask .