How happy are you with today's level of Diver Education?

[Aquaventurewhitetip]

I agree that the AOW should be put off until you have logged 50 plus dives in different conditions. I guess you would have to just trust what the log book says is true and use your judgement as an Instructor.
I really disapprove of the ease a student can go from Zero to Hero in just a few short months.
Experience is as important as the correct training, the two together is by far the best way to learn and develop skills and abilities.
I personally discourage Rescue diver courses on a warm sandy beach while the guest is on holiday. This course should be taken and skills gone over and over in a variety of conditions at home, preferably within a club environment so you can have as many victims and helpers as possible. Not just to help you direct and control things but to increase the level of what you have to respond to.

 

[Papa_Bear]

I have read most of the posts here and it all seems antidotel at best! Is there a study or stats that suggest "Today's" Diver is dying more than yesterday's? Did I miss something? Diving is an individual responsibility activity and I have not seen too many SCUBA police! It is supposed to teach, mostly adults, the physics it takes to stay safe! It will not put you in shape or make you drown proof! That is a different set of skills and class! You can't MAKE a better Skier, Driver, or any other activity we have the RIGHT to pursue!

I have not seen more articles about divers dying and killing their buddies now as 30 years ago! As a matter of Fact according to DAN divers are safer and the sport is as well! All a C-card does is relieve the air supplier of liability! It is not a license that can be revoked! It is a standard of basic knowledge and what you do with it is your responsibility!

You have to get divers for the industry some how, some will be better than others and some will stick with it while others will be fair weather divers, travel divers, occasional divers, and yes dedicated divers who live to improve or be the best! But if they don't start somewhere they will never be! Good instructors tell their students the limitations of their certs and it is up to each to use that information the way THEY see best!

Considering all the divers in the world it is one of the safest activities you can do! In the early 70s I trained a lot of divers and some were just not good divers, some dropped out of diving, and some stayed, but it was based on their personal experience and desire! Not how much training they did, real divers went on to get more training and experience! Same in 2009! :shocked2:

 

[vladimir]

antidotal: of or pertaining to a remedy or other agent used to neutralize or counteract the effects of a poison

anecdotal: based on personal observation, case study reports, or random investigations rather than systematic scientific evaluation

 

[Thalassamania]

I have read most of the posts here and it all seems antidotel at best! Is there a study or stats that suggest "Today's" Diver is dying more than yesterday's? Did I miss something? Diving is an individual responsibility activity and I have not seen too many SCUBA police! It is supposed to teach, mostly adults, the physics it takes to stay safe! It will not put you in shape or make you drown proof! That is a different set of skills and class! You can't MAKE a better Skier, Driver, or any other activity we have the RIGHT to pursue!

That's some of the worst malarkey I've ever read. I can and do make a BETTER diver on a rather routine basis (I could likely do that for you too), and I've had people make a better diver, skier and driver out of me, that's proof positive that you've not the vaguest idea of what you are talking about. Besides, why would you use survival as the sole criterion? That's rather strange, is that how we evaluate the success or failure of training in any of the other undertakings that you mention? Of course not! BTW: what's "antidotel" mean anyway?

I have not seen more articles about divers dying and killing buddies now as 30 years ago! As a matter of Fact according to DAN divers are safer and the sport is as well! All a C-card does is relieve the air supplier of liability! It is not a license that can be revoked! It is a standard of basic knowledge and what you do with it is your responsibility!

The DAN reports can not be compared to the NAUDC reports, they do not use the same definitions or analysis and so can not be cross compared. The idea that a C-card relieve the air supplier of liability a very strange construct ... I hope you didn't pay much for that legal advice because it's not worth a plug nickel.

You have to get divers for the industry some how, some will be better than others and some will stick with it while others will be fair weather divers, travel divers, occasional divers, and yes dedicated divers who live to improve or be the best! But if they don't start somewhere they will never be! Good instructors tell their students the limitations of their certs and it is up to each to use that information the way THEY see best!

The definitional limitation of an open water certification is for most all agencies something like this: "the ability to safety dive without supervision, when accompanied by a similarly trained buddy, in conditions similar to those in which the diver was trained." There seems to be almost a consensus that students being trained today rarely meet this specification. But you think that it's all okay, because, "You have to get divers for the industry some how." I say that is both irresponsible and immoral.

Considering all the divers in the world it is one of the safest activities you can do! In the early 70s I trained a lot of divers and some were just not good divers, some dropped out of diving, and some stayed, but it was based on their personal experience and desire! Not how much training they did, real divers went on to get more training and experience! Same in 2009! :shocked2:

I've been training divers since the early 1970s also. All were good divers. Yes ... ALL! I had one person in all that time that I was not able to certify, and that was a substance abuse problem, not a lack of either knowledge or skill; and yes ... for me, as you say it is for you, it is still the same today. I wonder what makes for the difference in our experiences?

 

[DaleC]

Instructors, like many people, only do the minimum. For me, you could not even sign up for AOW until you have booked 50 dives.

I don't know about that. There is nothing in AOW that would require 50 dives to prepare for and some divers would need the skills from AOW to safely do the first 50 (if they were diving without DM's in ocean conditions).
If one did two dives a day, once each week, it would take half a year of solid diving to take AOW in your example. Like the 100 dive minimum in a certain solo course, by the time you logged those dives you probably wouldn't need the course anyways.
I think the OW and AOW courses should be combined to actually make up a valid OW course.

 

[Thalassamania]

AOW is not longer Advanced Diver, it is in point of fact, the tail end of a proper O/W course that's been hacked off and turned into a separately priced product.

 

[ozziworld]

I think with the growth of the dive insudtry and the number of instructors and new divers there are a lot of variables. I suppose it would be fair to say that new divers are a product of their instructors more than they are a product of the agency.

I believe there is more access to training than before but consequently there is also more access to poor training as well.

Maybe one of the considerations would not be the training programs for OW divers but the training programs for instructors.

New divers generally do not know how much should have been covered during their OW course. I suppose that is why the people that respond to this thread tend to have a lot of experience, enough to know what should or should not have been covered and at what stage of training.

My advise to a wanna be diver would be to invest a lot of time on looking for a good instructor. Like the ones on this board perhaps who are conscientious enough to have given consideration to their roles as instructors beyind the dollars.

 

[Thalassamania]

Maybe one of the considerations would not be the training programs for OW divers but the training programs for instructors.

I think he's got it!

 

[ScubaDocER]

I don't know about that. There is nothing in AOW that would require 50 dives to prepare for and some divers would need the skills from AOW to safely do the first 50 (if they were diving without DM's in ocean conditions).
If one did two dives a day, once each week, it would take half a year of solid diving to take AOW in your example. Like the 100 dive minimum in a certain solo course, by the time you logged those dives you probably wouldn't need the course anyways.
I think the OW and AOW courses should be combined to actually make up a valid OW course.

AOW is not longer Advanced Diver, it is in point of fact, the tail end of a proper O/W course that's been hacked off and turned into a separately priced product.

I have heard many people suggest that the AOW course be removed because of it being perceived as being ineffective. In it's current form it probably is. My suggestion is to either combine the courses as it used to be or give the course some actual substance so that it has value, as NAUI did with the Master Scuba Diver Course. A diver with an AOW card should look, think, and dive as if they are Advanced. Instead of just exposing divers to different specialties, design the course so that it encourages competency in the specialties of interest. For example, I use the Deep part of the advanced course to review dive planning as it relates to increasing depth (as compared with the 60' limit taught in the OW course), use SAC rates to plan dives and manage gas consumption, task load at depth, and have them directly observe the changes in air consumption at depth instead of just reading about it. I also have them do 2 deep dives and have them plan the 2nd one. I also have them do an OOA ascent with a buddy from depth so that they know what that feels like if it should ever happen in their diving travels. I stress PPB by having them swim a fixed distance no more than 1-2 feet off them bottom without disturbing any silt (the quarry is a great place to test this). We also do SMB deployment while horizontal. While I am not seeking for them to be perfect at the skill, I do want them to display some degree of competence at it. Since the AOW course is still with us, why not teach it such that is has some meat in it? I look forward to reading what other Instructors have done to make the course worthwhile.

 

[MauiScubaSteve]

LOL Better watch out for the black helicopters.

All it proves is that you lack reading comprehension.

You get so stuck in defend PADI against all comers mode, you seem to forget how to read.

Jeff, all our conversation proves is that you refuse to speak in the same terms as every one else in this thread. The rest of us would like to discuss the entire course resulting in a certified diver; starting as a non-diver and ending as a card carrying Open Water Diver. When we speak of a 3-day, 4-day or 5-day class, we are talking about all training for Open Water completed, including the check-out dives. If you do not think any teaching happens on the two days of check-out dives that is your prerogative, but I think the rest of us all consider the check-out dives to be part of the complete class.

This thread is not the first thread you have badmouthed PADI with your 2-day class nonsense; it just happens to be the last straw for me as far as allowing you to propagate your misinformation. The link you provided as proof of the dreaded 2-day PADI class is actually a more intensive training than many advertised class room/pool training courses run by instructors with various agencies other than PADI.

What I take offense to is people talking out their bung hole with regards to dive training here on SB. If someone does so about NSS-CDS Cavern I will attempt to educate the unfortunate innocent bystanders. If one blatantly misstates standards of IANTD over and over I will beat them like a dead horse until at least everyone else sees the light. Those agencies are less prone to false information internet myths, so it might seem to some who only follow a couple SB forums that PADI untruths is my pet peeve, but the truth is any unfounded BS is something for me to rail against. PADI is just the butt of more unfounded BS.

There are plenty of actually true problems with PADI. We could spend years debating the real problems. It helps no one but those wanting others to be ignorant when we debate with untruths.