The simple answer is "Yes" I do wonder -- but do you?
Yes, I sometimes question what I see, hear, touch and what would normally be called common sense...
And yes, I do believe that to be a truly safe diver, one needs to understand, at the very least, some notion of "Air Supply Management" and I do believe PADI's curriculum lacks sufficient emphasis on that point. HOWEVER, there is nothing which prohibits, or even inhibits, a PADI instructor from making sure her students have the necessary understanding to be a safe, basic open water diver. (In fact, PADI standards can be read to require such an understanding since the very basic BWRAF (PADI's pre-dive check) has as one part "A" (air) which includes the notion that the divers have sufficient air for the dive they are planning to do.)
I think that this is part of the problem. There are many PADI Instructors that have to "read the standards in such a way" to allow them to provide the training that they know is required. I did the same thing when I was a PADI Instructor (until I had my wrist slapped for teaching rescue within my OW program). It seems that this is something that all good PADI Instructors do to justify themselves with the organization, rather than either convincing PADI to address these issues within the standards, or teaching for an organization where they have more freedom.
And no, nothing you, Thal or anyone else has written has shown me that being able to raise an unresponsive diver to the surface is something that a basic open water diver needs to know. Query, IN RECREATIONAL DIVING, how many times have you, Thal, or really, anyone else, actually come upon and surfaced an unresponsive diver? I'm not saying there aren't cases, just that it is such a rare occurence that making such a fuss over this one action is stupid. BTW, in the PADI Open Water Class, the instructor certainly can teach this skill (again, why I have no idea) and it is introduced to the PADI OW Student in the video which shows the student that this can be done and how to do it (video, Module 3, minute 24).
My life was saved by a fellow diver after I suffered an oxygen toxicity hit while diving a rebreather. I've dealt with unresponsive divers on three occasions; one seizure and two deaths. It happens. People have heart attacks, get bad gas, have malfunctions, some drown. Man was not designed to breathe underwater and there is no technology invented that hasn't failed. Having full knowledge of this, I believe added rescue skills are a requirement, if a reasonable level of diver safety is to be maintained. As no one can predict when these emergency situations will occur, I believe these skills should not be left for a future training course, as many divers never return for that training.
DCBC, your last notion, regarding swimming, well, as has been discussed before, what do YOU mean by "swimming?" PADI standards require an Open Water student to swim, without stopping, without any aids, 200 yards OR swim, without stopping using fins, mask and snorkel, 300 yards. That is, to me, a demonstration that one needs to show one can swim. It is true you don't have to be a competitive type swimmer to pass the test but this IS recreational diving after all where the diver HAS fins and a mask (at the very least)... IF someone gets an Open Water PADI card without such a demonstration of the ability to swim, then it IS the instructor who has failed, not the Agency.
Peter, that just isn't true. When I was eight, I could swim 300 yards with a mask, fins and snorkel. If I fell off the dock without them, I would drown. I was a non-swimmer, but would be able to pass the "PADI swim test." I would in NO WAY be safe to dive in the North Atlantic.
I'm quite willing to criticize PADI when it is deserved, but you DCBC, seem to delight in criticizing the agency when it isn't deserved (and it seems criticizing it out of ignorance and malice to boot).
You criticize? What criticizm would that be?
I've seen too many incompetent PADI divers (and some Instructors) to not question their standards (as I question other Agencies as well). I admit that there have been some changes since my 13 years with PADI, but they still maintain (in my opinion) a minimalist level of requirements for diver certification (among the lowest in the industry).
Second to the last item -- I don't know any Walmart affiliates so I don't know how they respond to ignorant criticism of their employer.
If by ignorant you mean lacking knowledge, information, or awareness? Perhaps you could correct me on the error of my ways. Like you did with the swimming requirements...
Last item -- again I ask, what agency is "GUI" of which you seem to be so fond?
If you will check the original post, you will see that this typo has been corrected. You can continue to highlight spelling, grammer, or typographical errors, but first check the use of commas in your post. People in glass houses...
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1) You do not mean 'requires.' Requires means: "Need for a particular purpose; depend on for success or survival." Since PADI divers successful dive and do not exhibit disproportionate mortality (remembering that PADI certifies 950k divers a year or so), you cannot support a claim that PADI-trained divers lack anything they require. You perhaps mean they lack things you believe are important by your subjective standard. Call a spade a spade.
A high number (if not the majority) of SCUBA Instructors in the World, are encouraged to add content to their training program to increase student safety. This content is a "requirement" for certification from the Agency. In other words, Instructors use their "subjective standard" to determine if the diver is to be certified or not. The purpose behind this is to increase overall diver safety. The Instructor must always act in an appropriate way that is in the student's best interests.
2) Neither an instructor, nor an agency, can "require a student" do anything. Scuba training is voluntary and a student can cease training at any time. All an instructor or agency can do is INDUCE a student. When you say 'require' you perhaps mean "induce by threat of withholding certification." You could rephrase your paragraph in this way for greater correctness: You don't believe PADI's standards are high enough. You do believe that instructors should be able to use the threat of withholding certification to induce students to engage in activities beyond the scope defined by the agency.
No one has indicated that it's acceptable for an Instructor to 'induce, or threaten" a student. This is not to say however that different Instructors/Agencies don't have different standards; they do.
1) Agency certification standards and diver education/learning are two completely distinct subjects. Learning neither starts, nor ends, with certification. It could be argued that, since real world experience is so important, getting divers off on their own building experience quickly is essential to the broader goal of diver education. To give another example: in aviation a pilot begins flying solo long before they are considered a fully educated pilot...in all honesty they are usually only considered "fully educated" when they retire...learning is a constant process.
Absolutely, we all continue to learn. As to your analogy: when you Solo, you aren't licensed to fly. This is done under the authority of law and under the guidance of the Instructor (albeit from the ground). The Instructor retains responsibility. No one gave me my Pilot's License and said come back if your interested in learning about 'Forced Landings.' It was considered mandatory and something that was 'required' to know (although no one forced me to learn).
2) People generally respond better to positive inducement. An instructor who teaches, and shares knowledge, and sets a good example, will generally have more success than an instructor who attempts to coerce by threat of withholding something.
3) If a particular instructor does not believe they can impart knowledge without coercion by threat of immediate loss to the student, there are still means available to them. As a trivial example, the instructor could charge an extra $100 above and beyond what they actually felt was a fair price for instructing the student, with the offer that students meeting the Instructor's personal standards (as well as the agency's) will have that $100 refunded. Now the instructor has $100 of force behind any coercion they use to impart their personal (vs the agency) standard. I doubt PADI would have any problem with that and some (sub?) students would probably like it too.
Again there has been no suggestion of coercion or threat.
4) If PADI gave instructors the power to withhold certification based on personal beliefs, would that really be good? Or would it make the agency responsible for abuses of that power? An instructor could decide her students need to book a dive trip through her shop to be divers worthy of certification. An instructor could make certification dependent on going to church. An instructor could withhold certification even nastier reasons. Why would the agency want to support, or even take the risk of supporting, such coercion?
To my knowledge, all diving agencies Worldwide (with the exception of PADI) use the "minimum standards" approach. The Agency places requirements that will suit a diver diving in shallow, warm water, free of wave/currents, with good visibility, often supervised by a DM or Instructor. If diving conditions locally indicate that more knowledge/skills are reasonable for the student (to maintain safety), the Instructor is encouraged to increase training and make this a requirement for certification. From a legal perspective (and to answer your question) I suspect that the Agency feels that any degree of negligence on its part is mitigated by allowing the Instructor to increase the training requirements. The other approach is to prohibit the Instructor from including it, regardless of the hazard this may pose.
