History of Diver Training

[SailNaked]

every time I read one of these threads it pisses me off. do you really think that if you think that diver training is not as good as it could be that you are some how a superior diver trainer. your opinion that Padi or ssi or any other agency or even individual dive standards are not enough to train proper divers is not and indication of your superiority. The standards have been teaching divers for ??50?? years. they have evolved to accomplish safe diver training.

the length of time it takes a student to learn something is just that, a length of time, nothing more, it does not mean anything about the student or the course, it means that that is how long it took that individual student to master the skills involved.

the skills are the same, back in the day a BC was optional, Octos were uncommon and we learned to buddy breath, so what. A BC is now required and you must learn to use it. this is an indication of an increase in standards. get over yourselves.

we teach students the basics of diving, we expect them to demonstrate it too us. we hope their brains will hold this information long enough to keep them safe when they go diving. there are no guarantees, if your course is 10 weeks or 3 days you have no guarantee that an individual student will have the thought process necessary to think through the millions of situations they may find themselves in.

Every student is more or less unique, they will remember parts of what you taught them, same as any other subject.

this is not aimed at anyone, in fact I barely read the first few posts before I was moved to rant.

 

[vladimir]

I dunno. I think pretty much every generation thinks poorly of the ones that follow them. Thinks they are slack, coddled, ungrateful, etc.

The world is getting better in my opinion: less violent, more tolerant, more technological progress, higher standards of living in the West at least and some developing countries. It just doesn't seem like things are going badly at all despite what older generations think of the ones younger than it...

Whew...that's good to hear. For a while there I was worried that your generation might miss the rain forests mine cut down, the species we extinguished, the habitat we paved over. I was afraid that nuclear proliferation would weigh heavily on you, that the ubiquity of McDonalds and KFC would erode your tastes, that the automation of everything would rob you of employment and purpose. But I didn't even consider the other side of the progress coin: you have high-definition tv, ipods and itouches and iphones, and broadband. I had to grow up without that stuff. But if you're cool with your deal, I'm okay with mine.

 

[Mike Boswell]

How much of this do you (as a group, not just Puffer) think this is partly due to the way that today's society coddles people? Everyone that goes out for the football team makes it. Everyone that competes in the sporting event gets a medal. There are no losers.

People aren't told to dust themselves up and get back on the horse anymore, they're told what a bad day the horse must have been having to throw them and that it's not their fault.

I expect a lot of people these days show stress when challenged because they've never been exposed to any real hardships during their life, like walking to school barefoot, uphill both ways in the snow.

I laughed out loud when I read this, because while it may be (metaphorically) true of some diving instruction, it is certainly NOT true of riding instruction, which is just as tough as it has ever been. Nor is it true for gymnastics or piano playing or any other sport or activity where excellence is the goal and performance can be measured.

I think many here on SB have simply not come to terms with the fact that SCUBA is now marketed to the masses, not as an extreme sport, but as a sedentary, leisure pastime more comparable to underwater bird-watching.

Having spent most of my life in the ocean, I am just as worried about non-swimmers in SCUBA units as I am about non-swimmers lined up along La Jolla's beaches. The unhappy fact is that a certain small percentage of both groups will drown.:depressed:

 

[Mike Boswell]

I dunno. I think pretty much every generation thinks poorly of the ones that follow them. Thinks they are slack, coddled, ungrateful, etc.

The world is getting better in my opinion: less violent, more tolerant, more technological progress, higher standards of living in the West at least and some developing countries. It just doesn't seem like things are going badly at all despite what older generations think of the ones younger than it...

Yes, and there is a lot of irony there. My father and mother worked all their lives to give their children a better life with less hardship and more opportunities. Then, when they saw how easy we had it, they whinged about how easy we had it, and how much harder life had been for them. And I did the same with my kids.

"Tougher" is usually best when it happens in the past.

 

[SailNaked]

[wow that was close almost hit post]

I am going to see if I learned anything from Lynn.

Some students learn faster than others, our standards are performance based, and they are fairly simple. why is longer better, what difference does it make if a student wants to get it done so they can go on vacation and practice what we teach them. That is what we do right. show them the basics and set them free?

can you fault the A student because he learns too fast?

yes some people do not feel comfortable even when they are competent, ask Diver0001 on a different thread. some people "need" a divemaster to follow them around after a class, this is all attributable to the individual not necessarily the teacher.

I am not saying it is not possible to have a bad instructor, however if a student can clear their mask in a pool, can clear it in some form of open water, and does not feel they need to see it again, then they can probably clear their mask on their own.

we teach them to do a buddy check. they can do it when they leave our course, they know they should do it on every dive. It is their decision if they want to do it on the dive boat, not a result of bad teaching.

some students can learn the whole thing in one hour, ask anyone in the Caribbean teaching Discover Scuba. So how is it that we can not possibly teach an OW course in 4 days?

individuals retain information differently. you can not promise me that if you just took seven more days with an OW student that they will retain any more than the 3 day student.

When I get on my unicycle now it takes me a little while to get used to it since I only ride it about once every 3 years, it is slightly harder than a bicycle and a lot harder than clearing a mask.

 

[DCBC]

...some students can learn the whole thing in one hour, ask anyone in the Caribbean teaching Discover Scuba. So how is it that we can not possibly teach an OW course in 4 days?

It all comes down to what you want to include in your Basic/OW program? Can it be done? Yes. Do instructors teach in this way? Yes. Do I choose to do it? No.

I think that this may be hard to comprehend if you are an instructor with an agency that tells you what to teach, in what order and restricts what you add to the course requirements. Some agencies have a packaged program that is more or less the same world-wide, while others say these are the minimum standards but the final requirements are up to you. So this is a consideration.

The other thing to consider is that not all diving instructors are teaching for money. Some teach independently and structure their programs based upon their client's expectations and the local environment. What is required for one not necessarily meets the requirements of another.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

some students can learn the whole thing in one hour, ask anyone in the Caribbean teaching Discover Scuba. So how is it that we can not possibly teach an OW course in 4 days?

Because the objective of a Discover Scuba course is not to teach you how to dive ... it's to teach you how to breathe underwater.

There is a significant difference.

Add in environmental factors that require additional technique or equipment and the task-loading involved increases ... which requires more time to master.

Most folks who learn how to dive in the tropics don't fare very well in cold-water environments ... because they haven't been exposed to the additional gear, weight, and buoyancy swings that come with diving in those conditions ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[Thalassamania]

Or a symptom of the way we live today. In various extra curricular courses I've taken (not just diving) I've run across a certain percentage of people who just don't seem to take the class seriously

I'd lay the blame for that on the instructor or the course "sponsor."

Perhaps the biggest change in education in the last few decades is the transition to performance based instruction and assessment. That transition is still going on, and we often see a curious mix of it with people who really don't understand its principles trying to apply them. We also see it when people who really don't understand its principles (but think they do) start ripping into it, making species statements about it. In the U.S., every state has set performance based standards and, in theory, mandated its use, yet I am quite sure only the minority of educators practicing it really understand it and practice it. ...

It seems to me that what you are saying is that diving has had a multi-decade flirtation with performance based training and that, for a number of reasons (not the least being the inability of the agencies to consistantly provide effective recalibration) it has failed.

... That's where the longer courses of yesteryear offered the advantages. It wasn't the fitness requirements ... nobody really needs to be able to do pushups in their scuba gear to become a fantastic diver ... it was the fact that basic watermanship skills helped to "rewire" the brain before you ever got to the point where scuba skills needed to be performed. ...

Yes!

I think many here on SB have simply not come to terms with the fact that SCUBA is now marketed to the masses, not as an extreme sport, but as a sedentary, leisure pastime more comparable to underwater bird-watching.

I did underwater bird watching for two years, it was some of the most grueling work that I've ever done, hardly a sedentary, leisure pastime.

 

[SailNaked]

there is little to no instruction to deal with current in a PADI OW course, we do not have any current in our lake so it is relatively difficult for me to teach it other than to mention some of the things to think about. so what. does that mean my course is insufficient? we do not have cold water, does that make me a poor instructor and my students unprofessional?

to much of this kind of thing is just a subtext for "I'm a better instructor, look at me" XXXX agency sucks, mine is the bomb, I am a god.

we all want our students to be prepared for what ever they may come across. We teach everything in the standards and anything we think a student would profit from. Most of us have other jobs that pay way better than teaching scuba, and wives or husbands that whine when we say we are going to the shop. What is the point of a poll or a thread that says "diving instruction is too lax today"

no it is not! it the same instruction that has happened for many years and is evolving to meet todays needs and reflects todays students.

Old Marines said the new training I did produces lax Marines, that in their day they were beaten and called foul names. Well some PHD decided that was not necessary to build a competent fighting force. I tend to agree, but I'll bet if I post how it was for me in Boot camp in 1984 there are plenty of Marines that fought in Iraq that would say that a lot of it is not allowed any more.

 

[DCBC]

What is the point of a poll or a thread that says "diving instruction is too lax today" no it is not!

Upset are we? You are entitled to your opinion. It would appear however, that you are in the minority.