Instructor Requirements- continued...

[-hh]

OMG, are you NUTS? Is it just that you don't have any experience with the IRS or are you a fan of Stalin-esque purges?

Neither.

Many decent, hardworking, legimate sole proprietors have been financially ruined by the capricious and arbitrary nature of the IRS, their agents, and their tax courts...

True, but calm down for a second.

My point is that there are "bad" instructors. And many of these bad eggs often have the tendency to be schemers and snakes who are always trying some new way to beat the system, no matter what system it is that we're talking about.

The way that this applies to their scuba diving habit is that they get into their walnut the idea that they can "beat the tax man" (a system) by becoming an instrustor so that they can then write off their diving expenses on their income taxes.

In other words, they become an instructor not because they're any good at it or give a darn about their students, but because it lets them "beat" the IRS.

Needless to say, people suffer because of this crass motivation.

Just because you can't think of a workable way to self-regulate the industry?

Nope, I'm not a tax expert. Here, we've spotted the habit patterns of one of the bad instructor snakes. Clearly, the way to get rid of this type of snake is to take away their financial motive. There's probably several ways to do this; I chose the IRS because its easy for people to grok, not because it would be easy. Please brainstorm and suggest others that would be more practical.


-hh

 

[opiniongirl]

All such high quality people would sure be jumping on this, considering that most instructors make below minimum wage.

I say, lets make the standards much, much more difficult for FACILITIES and OWNERS, stricter regulations and requirements for them..

And raise the price of courses! How on earth do people expect to have these amazing, mature instructors with years of experience, and highly dedicated, when you can buy an OW course for $199 CANADIAN?

Make the courses more expensive (including the IDC), and raise the earnings level so as to attract the type of professional needed.

 

[wedivebc]

I know this thread was directed at non-instructors but I can't keep my mouth shut on this subject. My IDC taught me nothing about diving. It taught me the PADI way of presenting material and plenty of marketing stuff I didn't know before but there was nothing about physics, or dive skills covered. The instructor has only one place to really learn about diving and that is in the water doing the dives that are being taught. That is why I think every instructor should keep an accurate dive log and be willing to produce it on demand to any potential student. If your instructor has been diving for less than a couple of years, run-don't walk away.

 

[wedivebc]

All such high quality people would sure be jumping on this, considering that most instructors make below minimum wage.

I say, lets make the standards much, much more difficult for FACILITIES and OWNERS, stricter regulations and requirements for them..

And raise the price of courses! How on earth do people expect to have these amazing, mature instructors with years of experience, and highly dedicated, when you can buy an OW course for $199 CANADIAN?

Make the courses more expensive (including the IDC), and raise the earnings level so as to attract the type of professional needed.

Hmmmm, a more expensive IDC, how will that solve anything? Would the IDC have something more to offer for the greater expense?

 

[TCDiver1]

Needless to say, people suffer because of this crass motivation.

Nope, I'm not a tax expert. Here, we've spotted the habit patterns of one of the bad instructor snakes. Clearly, the way to get rid of this type of snake is to take away their financial motive. There's probably several ways to do this; I chose the IRS because its easy for people to grok, not because it would be easy. Please brainstorm and suggest others that would be more practical.

-hh

Sorry hh, this makes no sense to me. You would punish all part timers for the ones who are bad? My experience has been that part timers care just as much about quality as full timers. Lets quit the carpet bombing solutions and go for more of a surgical strike.

The answer is simple in my mind. Make sure instructor trainers don't let any dead weight into the ranks. It wouldn't be 100% fool proof because there will always be a few who will squeak by but it would catch the majority of 90 day wonders who don't have the true skills to teach IMO.

This doesn't happen enough for numerous reasons but i believe it really is that simple if implemented and enforced

 

[-hh]

.
I like the 250 minimum, but don't understand the concept behind not counting more than 100/year. You already have the 3 full years of active diving as a requirement. That should accomplish your goal without the 100 dives/year limit. Besides, it's a good thing when instructor candidates dive often.

My general philosophy is that a candidate should already have a "good number" of years and dives under his belt before he even thinks about becoming an instructor...he shouldn't need to go out to make dives to meet its minimum qualifiaction requirements.

(FWIW, this philosophy also applies for Technical diving too).

What I'm struggling with here is a process by which we can discourage someone from "rushing" through a ton of dives in a short period of time in order to meet a minimum dive count requirement. Putting a minimum time-based experience requirement (eg, 3 years) helps, but that still doesn't alleviate someone who's short of the "count" from rushing to qualify. That's what the idea of a 100/year maximum cap is trying to address.

FWIW, I find it interesting that no one has disputed the idea of a minimum of 20 dives/year in order for a year to count towards their experience.

{College Degree}

Sounds good. I wouldn't be against this one for all instructors.

I'm not against it either. However, I do recognize diving is an industry that can (and does) accomodate people without a college degree. Overall, I think the big issue here is that the standards bar must be raised when we're dealing with "Train the Trainer" levels of classes, and that's completely missing at the higher leadership levels. For example, and to be VERY specific to proposed minimums, using PADI's structure:

IDC Staff Instructor: 4 year degree (any accredited college)
Master Instructor: +20 credits postgrad Education classes
Course Director: A Master's Degree in Education from an accredited college

First, this is a matter for the IRS, not the agencies. Secondly, these are legitimate business expenses for instructors.

Agreed; while they are legit, it does IMO tend to pattern out that the "bad apples" are the ones that care most about getting a tax break; see my above note on the subject for more.


-hh

 

[Diver0001]

....snip....
the idea that they can "beat the tax man" (a system) by becoming an instrustor so that they can then write off their diving expenses on their income taxes.

What, exactly, is the problem with someone engaged in a professional activity in a badly paid sector receiving a tax benefit? The "system" is set up, to some extent, to make it possible for small scale entrepreneurs to keep doing what they do. That's the government offering something back to people who have the ambition working in a sector that doesn't pay..... You know how much a typical instructor makes? about 1/3rd of minimum wage (where I live). That's 1/3rd of the money they pay to the boy who shakes the extra oil out of the fries at McDonalds.

And DM's make about 1/2 of that.

What part of this makes you think that pros are conspiring to scam the "system"?

Sheesh. :angry2:

Needless to say, people suffer because of this crass motivation.

I have a comment I'd like to place here but it will probably get pulled so I won't. Suffice it to say that the financial motivation is the LAST thing that gets most people into teaching. Most of the people I know who do this work are happy if they break even.

R..

 

[opiniongirl]

Hmmmm, a more expensive IDC, how will that solve anything? Would the IDC have something more to offer for the greater expense?

Imagining the other extreme, how many more losers would take their IDC if it were cheaper - say, $499? The higher the price, the more dedicated they are, to some extent. Vancouver is a mill for young instructors who just want to party and (ahem) fraternize with the students. I can't imagine that many of them could afford to do this if the IDC were priced higher.

You get what you pay for:
Higher course fees demand better instructors. Better instructors demand better pay. Better pay demands better instructors. Better instructors are in demand...thus, the crappy instructors don't justify the higher pay - weed out. The higher price of the IDC would reflect the higher income earning potential that quality instructors would look forward to.

If you compare this industry to other adventure sports - skydiving, rafting, kayaking, rock climbing, etc - we are shooting ourselves in the foot and them complaining about the gun by having ridiculous price wars with the store down the street.

 

[wedivebc]

Imagining the other extreme, how many more losers would take their IDC if it were cheaper - say, $499? The higher the price, the more dedicated they are, to some extent. Vancouver is a mill for young instructors who just want to party and (ahem) fraternize with the students. I can't imagine that many of them could afford to do this if the IDC were priced higher.

You get what you pay for:
Higher course fees demand better instructors. Better instructors demand better pay. Better pay demands better instructors. Better instructors are in demand...thus, the crappy instructors don't justify the higher pay - weed out. The higher price of the IDC would reflect the higher income earning potential that quality instructors would look forward to.

If you compare this industry to other adventure sports - skydiving, rafting, kayaking, rock climbing, etc - we are shooting ourselves in the foot and them complaining about the gun by having ridiculous price wars with the store down the street.

I would agree with you if the extra money was based on a more comprehensive course. I don't personally think my IDC was good value for my hard earned money other than it prepared me for the IE. Both of which were a means to an end. How about charging more money and maybe increasing the standard of the training?

 

[-hh]

Jayzes! A diploma does not equal intelligence or education. The two are non-related.

While its not impossible to get a diploma without any brain cells, it does infer some degree of intelligence. More importantly, it displays a willingness for a formal evaluation process to distill down to a PASS/FAIL.

As for diving physics: it's not rocket science. Anyone who can read, write and who knows simple arithmetic can learn this.

The fact that its not hard for some people unfortunately does not mean that everyone automatically "gets it".

For two quick examples:

1) check the scubaboard archives for where I related a story about THREE Nitrox Instructors who couldn't grasp the concept of Oxygen Clock.

2) recall the news report from DEMA from around ten years ago that found that over 50% of DM and Instructor survey volunteers failed to properly execute a repetitive dive sequence on a standard dive table.

{re: 3 years/250 dives}
There is something to be said for this, but still: no two instructor candidates are the same.

True, but we are, afterall, trying to come up with a KISS set of criteria by which we believe we'll generally get good candidates.

{College Degree}
Oh please! Get real! As I said before: a degree proves nothing.

A college degree indicates the candidate's willingness to put up with unreasonable and BS requirements

More seriously, see what I wrote to Walter, above, about how we must raise the standards bar for "Train the Trainer" classes.


-hh