I certainly wouldn't have a problem answering the questions but if someone came to me with a list of questions like that I would be very curious what is motivating them to approach it like this.
I think, as in all interviews, that the questions actually say a lot about the interviewer as well as the person being interviewed. With that in mind, I'll list a number of your questions and point out what I think I see as a number of underlying assumptions that you might want to reflect upon:
2. How long have you been diving?
3. How long have you been certifying divers?
These two questions would seem to indicate an underlying assumption that the "quantity" of experience also indicates something about the "quality" of the instructor's class. While there may be some correlation, I would submit that there are some instructors out there with vast amounts of experience who are not very good. Likewise, there are some instructors with less experience who may be in a position to deliver an excellent course.
9. Have you ever failed to certify a student? Why or why not?
There seems to be a general assumption (not just yours) out there that instructors who "fail" students are somehow better than instructors who do not. Some instructors (and agencies!) even pride themselves on the number of failures and see it as an expression of quality.
I would submit that contrary to what you might be expecting that if an instructor fails a significant number of their students that there is a problem. I would expect to see the best instructors answer this question with a statement that they do not certify everyone who starts with a course but that they will keep trying for as long as the student wants to keep trying.
In my own case, for example, I've never "failed" anyone but there have been several whose training I stopped at various stages and either handed them off to another instructor with more experience with their particular problem or something like that. One student I refused to start training at all and sent to get swimming lessons after a trial session in the pool. Good instructors go the extra mile and do whatever it takes to get the student to their goal within the required standards. Bad instructors, in my opinion, write them off and fail them. There's a big difference between saying "not yet" and "not you".
2. Do you teach the panic cycle?
3. Do you work on buoyancy?
4. Do you work on trim?
5. What method do you use to properly weight your students?
These items are important to me because I think they often come out as the core difference in attitude between instructors who teach their students to go underwater and those who teach students to dive.
However, the questions are not well formulated because in some way or another they all require attention in most agencies courses. It's the amount of attention to these items you want to try to get your finger behind, isn't it?
For example, on the panic cycle, I teach not only about the panic cycle but I spend time on breathing and relaxation techniques, which I get students to try to apply from day one.... prevention is better than cure. it's nice to know that you saw it coming when you panicked because the instructor covered it.... but it much nicer if you just never panic because they taught you how to relax.
Likewise with buoyancy control and trim. I spend a lot of time on this in my course because it's important but if you asked me and three other instructors if you cover it, we'll all say yes. But how do you know who is covering it well?
What you really want to ask here is *HOW* they teach these things.
6. Will I be learning skills kneeling on the pool bottom or mid-water?
The assumption here would appear to be that if you "learn" skills on the bottom that you aren't learning how to dive. However, I would submit that that *goal* you're trying to reach by the *end* of the course is to be able to do skills will neutrally buoyant. The most effective method of *introducing* skills, however, may be on the bottom. Certainly for some skills. For example, clearing a partially flooded mask is one of the first things you do in the OW course, and my opinion is that it's ineffective to introduce this skill while floating around if someone has literally never been on scuba before. I introduce it (and the other skills in mod-1) on the bottom. However, by mod-3 they're able to do it while swimming.
So it's the goal that matters and so we start with the *end* in mind but don't necessarily demand to see the *end* result at the start. Sometimes it takes more than one step.
With other skills, there isn't any difference. No-mask swimming, for example, is a skill that (the way I teach it) starts from neutral swimming and ends in neutral swimming so in this case you never touch the bottom. However at the point in the course where you do this skill, you already have several hours of practice under your belt so you're not learning neutral swimming anymore, it's something you already know.
The point here is that demanding to see everything while floating from the very first try isn't always the most efficient way of teaching (or learning). It would appear to me that what you want to know when you ask this question is if you will be able to do skills while swimming at the end of the course (the goal). So why don't you ask that question instead?
R..
