What do you guys think of my response in Papabears thread (just the concept, not about the thread). From an instructors POV could part of the problem be that you are expected to teach the OW course to two different groups of divers and find that the standards for one don't equal the standards for the other. Is it better to expect all divers to meet too high/low a set of standards or would they (and you) be better served by offering two variations of the OW course?
"...I think the real problem is that some agencies are not entirely "honest" about what they are delivering. The primary market for one agency (the one I am familiar with) seems to be the resort/vacation diver (where most sites are known, the dive plan is developed and DM/guides are available). If that is the market then the course called OW is sufficient IMO.
There are other divers however, who dive in more challenging circumstances. They need/should be able to plan and execute a dive by themselves (sans DM/Guide) but they also take the same OW course as the vacation diver. In this case I think the course could be seen as lacking.
The agency I know of counters this deficit by offering the AOW course as well as other specialty classes but I think it is a misnomer to call their initial course OW if it doesn't fully prepare the diver for OW.
I don't think this is a big deal though and it could be remedied easily by simply renaming/restructuring the courses. Todays OW course could be called "Resort diver" (or something like it) and a seperate course OW+AOW could be called "Independant diver" (or something like it). The designations would be more honest regarding the skills of its graduates and a simular sales structure would apply. The "resort diver" could upgrade to "independant diver" by simply taking the missing modules. I don't think many would be offended by these designations as vacation divers seldom want to dive in the harsher home conditions and probably don't want to be independant divers anyways. As you say some people just want to splash around and look at the fishes.
It may seem to be a semantics game but to say that one course can produce an OW diver for the vacation model as well as the independant model doesn't work. The agencies are trying to paint with too broad a brush. To which dive group does the agency set its standards? It seems the first (target) group which leavs the second lacking."
I completely agree with a name change, to better reflect the skills actually imparted (or rather, that should be imparted). Resort Diver and Independent Diver are good, although I confess I prefer the alternative ISO names provided by DCBC upthread as a more accurate reflection of your qualifications (again, what they should be).
RSTC Standard,
ISO Standard, Alternative ISO Title
Scuba Experience No equivalent
No equivalent
Level One Diver Supervised Diver
Open Water Diver
Level Two Diver Autonomous Diver
Dive Supervisor Level Three Diver Dive Leader
Whatever it's renamed, AOW has to go, as it's nothing of the sort. Intermediate OW, maybe. As a fallback I'd accept OW I and OW II, but would really prefer to get rid of OW in the title of the minimum cert. I expect Resort/Independent is better from a marketing perspective than Supervised Diver/Autonomous Diver, even if the latter is more accurate. Too many male egos would be pushed out of shape by "Supervised"; of course, this is likely the same group of people who tend to have poor self-assessment skills in the first place.
I have to partially disagree with a comment made earlier that the quality of students isn't part of the problem. Yes, you can always teach a motivated student who wants to learn more. But if you get the sort who want everything done for them and expect to have their hand held, or the sort who think they already know everything, I don't think they're likely to learn much if anything. An attitude of dependency is pretty tough to break, as is one of omniscience.
In addition, the average physical condition of dive students today is undoubtedly poorer than it was, partly because they're older but mainly because they're fatter. When I was a scoutmaster I could certainly see the difference between the generation of kids that grew up without video games and spent most of their playtime outdoors, and the generation that had them from the time they were able to hold a controller. Deletion of mandatory PE at school has just accelerated the process of turning people into couch potatos.
For me, raising the swim standards (what NOAA calls "watermanship" skills, which includes being comfortable and confident while doing them) and boosting the free-diving part of training (virtually non-existent in my OW course) would be the simplest and easiest step to separate the Independent/Autonomous divers from the Resort/Supervised divers.
While I know competent, confident divers who are relatively poor swimmers, as a general rule I believe if you aren't a competent/confident swimmer in decent condition you have no business in the water anywhere it's rough, cold, there's strong current and/or the vis is limited. If you start out stressed by fear of your environment and your ability to cope with it, you're already behind the curve for dealing with any issues that may come up. You may survive, just, but you endanger not just yourself (which you have every right to do) but everyone who dives with you on every dive, because they're the ones who will have to attempt to rescue you. And a small but steady number don't survive, as the regular death toll at my local Darwinian dive site (North Monastery Beach south of Carmel, Ca.) demonstrates.
Increasing the swim distance is good for making sure that people are in decent shape, but is unnecessary to see if they're confident in the water; If you watch Michael Phelps (or any decent swimmer) take two strokes, are you really in any doubt about their watermanship?
So for me, the critical issue to separate the autonomous students from the rest would be to specify the strokes to be used; no more dog-paddling, just free, breast and/or side stroke (hey, if you can do fly, by all means) performed to a decent standard: You don't have to be a competitive swimmer, just obviously know what you're doing. And no use of fins, as I believe PADI allows as an option; just you and the water (swimsuits optional
)
Boost the swim distance and breath-hold (not done at all in my OW class) a bit to ensure reasonable condition, and/or impose a reasonable time limit on the first; except for students who are already marginal on the first two, I doubt much is proved by extending the length of the float/tread beyond 10 or 15 minutes. If they can go that long they can almost certainly go for 30, just with double or triple the boredom.
Then, include/require free-diving skills to a much greater extent than has been my experience (and which seems to usually be the case). I'm in no doubt that if I hadn't already had the skills, a course like the YMCA/SEI curriculum would be my choice for giving divers some fundamental underwater experience, much of which transfers well to scuba: mask and snorkel clears and controlling buoyancy by lung volume are a few, not to mention mouth breathing through a mouthpiece. Personally, I'm really glad I learned to use a snorkel without a purge valve way back when; makes clearing a reg underwater without using the purge a non-event.
In short, I think you should be a fairly efficient air-breathing water mammal before you try to be a fish. I don't believe that the best introduction to swimming underwater is to do so on scuba.
And while we're talking about pie in the sky utopias, if we're going to keep it around let's make Master Diver have some real value instead of just "I took AOW and Rescue and have 50+ dives" - we've got quite enough meaningless cards these days.
Guy
