LiteHedded
Contributor
It's very hard to become a GUE instructor -- I know, because I investigated it, for me, at the recreational level. It's even harder, and far more expensive, to become a GUE technical instructor. You have to recertify every several years, and it's not trivial -- you have to present yourself, have your skills evaluated, and have your teaching technique scrutinized. There aren't very many GUE technical teachers, because it's so difficult to get there, and so hard to maintain. It makes for a high degree of predictability -- there is very little standards drift or curriculum variation, except in details.
I will not in any way defend GUE as having a uniform cadre of superb instructors. Some of them are great teachers and some are not. Some are suitable for one type of student, and some better for another. But of all the agencies, GUE keeps their staff most to heel; the curriculum is very structured, and the student can look up the standards for the class, and the criteria for evaluation, and all classes should be run (and generally are) according to those things.
I don't know of another agency, either cave or technical, that polices its instructional cadre as closely. THOSE are the reasons I push GUE, not because the agency is supporting some bad-ass exploration activity.
agreed