IANTD's Essential's Class

[LiteHedded]

nevermind

 

[Superlyte27]

I don't ever imagine a time when I'll try to make a living at being an instructor. Quite honestly, until this turn in the economy, I wouldn't have been able to get used to the pay cut.

 

[AndyNZ]

Maybe cause the good ones overwhelming issue cards via the agencies I respect. Yes there are a few high quality instructors in PADI (just to continue with your example but this could just as equally be IANTD).

I think we are saying the same thing, aren't we? I'm suggesting agency is at least as important as reputation - so therefore the choice of agency is crucial.

I don't ever imagine a time when I'll try to make a living at being an instructor. Quite honestly, until this turn in the economy, I wouldn't have been able to get used to the pay cut.

Then I wouldn't waste your time. Teaching diving is a job - whilst it provides it's own rewards, it still reduces the amount of dive you can dive for your own reasons. I am currently thinking about giving up teaching so I can go diving more.

 

[Superlyte27]

Anyone who's teaching anything for how much money they can make, is teaching for the wrong reasons.

I say this as a teacher in public schools who sees more than 12000 middle and highschool students in more than 30 schools in 5 different counties every year. You can tell first hand who is there for the paycheck and who is there for their students.

The same can be said about alot of cave instructors. I don't want to be an instructor who is doing it for a paycheck. I want to do it because I love the sport. I want to share the love with other people. Yah, that sounds gay, but if you have something great, don't you want everyone to be able to experience it too?

 

[AndyNZ]

The same can be said about alot of cave instructors. I don't want to be an instructor who is doing it for a paycheck. I want to do it because I love the sport. I want to share the love with other people. Yah, that sounds gay, but if you have something great, don't you want everyone to be able to experience it too?

I'm going to call BS on this! Not intending to be confrontational, just pragmatic.

Just to become a completely standard recreational instructor probably costs a person around $10k. To become a tech or cave instructor you can add at least that again - more if you want to do it properly.

Add in to that the cost of all the dives you do in order to get the breadth of experience to be a *good* instructor.... the insurance, the gear and everything else.... the investment is easily $50k in total.

You need to generate sufficient income to make a return on that investment. Otherwise you are crazy.

Teaching "for the love of it" is ultimately what drives lowering of standards. The industry comes to expect that instructors should work for less than the minimum wage. So the instructors end up putting in minimal effort once the "joy" of teaching fades... which for a full time instructor is about 6 months, part time maybe 2 years.

The bottom line, really, is that if you don't value your time then neither will your students.

 

[rjack321]

I think we are saying the same thing, aren't we? I'm suggesting agency is at least as important as reputation - so therefore the choice of agency is crucial.

Sorta I guess. Personally I think the agency an instructor chooses to teach under/for is a reflection of their own excellence and/or drive. Which is another way of saying its all about the instructor.

 

[lamont]

take IANTD essentials and take a GUE fundamentals and/or UTD intro tech course and report the differences and your impressions.

 

[AndyNZ]

Sorta I guess. Personally I think the agency an instructor chooses to teach under/for is a reflection of their own excellence and/or drive. Which is another way of saying its all about the instructor.

I think it's more symbiotic.... the reputation of the agency depends on the integrity of the instructors, and the integrity of the agency creates a reputation for the instructors. An exceptional instructor can create their own reputation (in time), but it's a lot of hard work.

In an ideal world, I would agree that you can read a lot into an instructors choice. But, no offence intended, the US is a very privileged country in terms of the variety of choice. Sometimes you have to make compromises based on the choice available. At the end of the day, you have to pay the bills.

 

[Thalassamania]

...

As for Tom Mount's accomplishments, I won't knock them. I said myself he did great things. I simply think we have different levels of risk which we're willing to accept for a recreational activity. Because of this, no, I would not take a course from him. Not sure why that offends everyone?

Risk and skill are often inversely proportional. If you had Tom's skill perhaps you'd not see the risks as being as high.

He ran the Univ of Miami (RSMAS) scientific diver program in the early 70's, his standards were high.

Very high. I never had any problem putting one of Tom's divers in the water.

Good luck with that. Whilst it's feasible, it's a long slog to develop that reputation and some people will never even give you a chance.

I see no problem, I know lots of instructors' product as "name" brands that I trust.

Let's say, for the sake of argument, you became a PADI instructor. It doesn't matter how good your courses are, how well you engage with your students or how great their skills are..... 95% of members of Scubaboard will slag you off for the low standards of your agency, despite never having met you or ever having seen you teach.

My experience bears out that bias. I never had a single PADI certified diver come to me at a level that I considered "ready to dive." There were a lot of divers from other agencies that I also did not consider "ready to dive," but it was never 100%.

...

The agency you teach for is what opens the door - once you've got the door open, it's then up to you to sell your individual wares and build your reputation. Over time that reputation will grow enough that you no longer need the calling card, but in the early days of an instructing career you simply won't get any students unless you leverage the reputation of the agency you teach for.

That depends on who you are and what you are doing. If your fighting for your slice of the walk in the street to the LDS market, your quite correct.

Let's assume you just want to market on the basis of your reputation. That means that you need to remove any agency specific references to the courses you offer. Why (seeing as this is in the cave section) should someone do the Superlyte27 cavern class as opposed to doing the TDI class offered by Joe Bloggs down the road? You can issue your own card that says that the person has completed your course - but when they travel to Mexico, are they going to be allowed to do dives in the caverns?

No problem. I have dove all over the world on the strength of the card that Lloyd Austin wrote for me almost 40 years ago, never had it turned down, and it has no agency name on it, just the seal of the University of California at Berkeley.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not picking on you! But you can't separate the instructor from the agency.

You sure as hell can.

Anyone who's teaching anything for how much money they can make, is teaching for the wrong reasons.

I have to agree. It is nice to make a living, even better to make a good living, but if that is your sole reason for teaching diving I doubt that you'll ever be really good at it.

I'm going to call BS on this! Not intending to be confrontational, just pragmatic.

In the narrow confines of the world as you see it and interact with you may be correct, but there's lots of stuff outside of the box that you're in.

Just to become a completely standard recreational instructor probably costs a person around $10k. To become a tech or cave instructor you can add at least that again - more if you want to do it properly.

It cost me about a grand.

Add in to that the cost of all the dives you do in order to get the breadth of experience to be a *good* instructor.... the insurance, the gear and everything else.... the investment is easily $50k in total.

That maybe what it cost (Hell, my MK-15 cost near that new), but I never had to pay that. If you did, well ... that's your thing, it doesn't mean that it is everyone else's.

You need to generate sufficient income to make a return on that investment. Otherwise you are crazy.

I guess that I (and most of my colleagues) are all crazy.

Teaching "for the love of it" is ultimately what drives lowering of standards. The industry comes to expect that instructors should work for less than the minimum wage. So the instructors end up putting in minimal effort once the "joy" of teaching fades... which for a full time instructor is about 6 months, part time maybe 2 years.

There I disagree, it is the "for profit" instructor who quickly finds out just how hard it is to make a decent living in the face of training agencies who insist on churning out thousands of new instructors every year, most of whom are gone in two years or less.

The bottom line, really, is that if you don't value your time then neither will your students.

Again, that's claptrap. I know lots of really good instructors who give their time away, I do so also, and I've never had a student not value that.

Sorta I guess. Personally I think the agency an instructor chooses to teach under/for is a reflection of their own excellence and/or drive. Which is another way of saying its all about the instructor.

It is one of the things that a instructor is judged by.

I think it's more symbiotic.... the reputation of the agency depends on the integrity of the instructors, and the integrity of the agency creates a reputation for the instructors. An exceptional instructor can create their own reputation (in time), but it's a lot of hard work.

It is hard work, though often not as much time as you'd think.

In an ideal world, I would agree that you can read a lot into an instructors choice. But, no offence intended, the US is a very privileged country in terms of the variety of choice. Sometimes you have to make compromises based on the choice available. At the end of the day, you have to pay the bills.

At the end of the day you are responsible for what your choices say about you, even if what they say is incorrect.

 

[Dive-aholic]

Strict as in allowing classes to be "mixed teams"? Strict as in no gear standards? Strict as in no decompression training at full cave (at least not required) yet no adv nitrox/deco requirement? Strict as in there's never an instructor reevaluation? Strict as in there's photos on instructors websites of students in deco bottles for a basic cave class at little river and nothing was done when the training director was told? Strict as in some instructors are teaching 1/2+200 for stages and some teach 1/3rds? Strict as in not even a survey is mailed to or filled out by students to fill out asking questions about their course?

What exactly are they strict about? Of course, I wouldn't know, since the training standards aren't available online (GUE's are).

But anyways, back to crossovers...I just don't see what they're useful for other than the financial aspect. The fact is, had your nss-cds instructor process been subpar, now the NACD has an instructor who they've only partially trained. I've talked to a few instructors about their crossover process, and even they weren't impressed.

BTW- To finish my rant, one of the most impressive things I think GUE does is filming students for feedback. I know you do this as well, and think you're doing your students a great service. I wish agencies would require it.

Strict as in the process of becoming an instructor. That is the only thing I was referring to. You're incorrect about the crossover to NACD. As I stated, I still had to do an internship with Larry and I still have to attend the IE in December. Just because I'm an NSS-CDS instructor doesn't mean I automatically get an NACD instructor card. The same goes if I had done it the other way around.

Sorta I guess. Personally I think the agency an instructor chooses to teach under/for is a reflection of their own excellence and/or drive. Which is another way of saying its all about the instructor.

I've chosen to affiliate with different agencies for a different reason. It's cheap advertising. My name is listed on each of their websites and some divers, for whatever reason, only want cards from one particular agency. All of my courses go above and beyond the standards of each individual agency.

Also, GUE doesn't allow sidemount...