Is there an instructor crisis?

[Lorenzoid]

I completely agree...but the formal agency instruction sets (or should) the foundation for this future knowledge. IMO, those saying formal training by a SCUBA instructor isn't necessary to dive are off their rocker.

All this talk of self-study, learning without being instructed, sounds like wishful thinking to me, too, when some very good methods have been developed over the decades. For instance, the idea of practicing skills in "confined water" before moving on to "open water" is brilliant, and I would like to believe intuitively obvious to would-be divers attempting to learn on their own. Yet I can envision people jumping into deep-ish water to try out skills. How many people even have access to a pool? Oh sure, learning scuba is easy ... yet we often see posts from OW students who have difficulty with clearing a mask. My guess is that the people who are capable of learning scuba on their own are a minority.

 

[tursiops]

All this talk of self-study, learning without being instructed, sounds like wishful thinking to me, too, when some very good methods have been developed over the decades. For instance, the idea of practicing skills in "confined water" before moving on to "open water" is brilliant, and I would like to believe intuitively obvious to would-be divers attempting to learn on their own. Yet I can envision people jumping into deep-ish water to try out skills. How many people even have access to a pool? Oh sure, learning scuba is easy ... yet we often see posts from OW students who have difficulty with clearing a mask. My guess is that the people who are capable of learning scuba on their own are a minority.

What's worse is that self-learners often tend to avoid the hard or distasteful things (like clearing a mask or swimming underwater without one)....but at least the formal training standards require you to do those things.

 

[berndo]

My grandfather had about 30 years of dive experience when he taught me. He was not an instructor. I dove for the next 20 something years without being certified.

Yeah, but how many people have grandfathers that have been diving for 30 years? It's not really an option for most people that want to learn diving.

 

[tomfcrist]

Yeah, but how many people have grandfathers that have been diving for 30 years? It's not really an option for most people that want to learn diving.

Great argument. The question was about if it could be done…it can. I never said it was an option for everyone.

 

[Lorenzoid]

Yeah, but how many people have grandfathers that have been diving for 30 years? It's not really an option for most people that want to learn diving.

Or skiing or driving a car or target shooting or anything else that's been mentioned here. Very few people who want to learn something that requires some physical skill are fortunate enough to have people around to show them how it's done. The few replies offering their own family anecdotes are not going to help anyone else.

 

[berndo]

Great argument. The question was about if it could be done…it can. I never said it was an option for everyone.

I don't think anybody doubts that it can be done. It's just that without any formal training standard you get a bunch of people who think they know what they are doing but don't. Look at all the people that went cave diving without training and died. Formal cave training seems to have fixed some of that.

 

[Lorenzoid]

Great argument. The question was about if it could be done…it can. I never said it was an option for everyone.

Where was a question asked whether someone with 30 years of experience could teach someone else to dive? If I have been following this correctly, your story was in reply to berndo's remark doubting that some "random" dad or uncle--an average diver--could do better than a trained instructor. Your grandfather was hardly some random diver--he had enormous experience.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

Where was a question asked whether someone with 30 years of experience could teach someone else to dive? If I have been following this correctly, your story was in reply to berndo's remark doubting that some "random" dad or uncle--an average diver--could do better than a trained instructor. Your grandfather was hardly some random diver--he had enormous experience.

Next you will claim Fabian's grandfather knew what he was doing when he taught his grandson to dive on his 4th birthday (note, I do not recommend this for physiology reasons).

 

[tomfcrist]

Look at all the people that went cave diving without training and died.

Can’t fix stupid.

If I have been following this correctly, your story was in reply to berndo's remark doubting that some "random" dad or uncle--an average diver--could do better than a trained instructor.

No sir, he was stating that the “random uncle” could have 8 dives vs an instructor who could have 100. My post was to point out that both of those examples are newbs. Still the blind leading the blind. I’d rather have a crusty ole grandpa teach my grandkids to dive than a 100 dive freshly minted instructor….you know, the same ones that kept killing themselves in caves because they are “instructors” or “experts”.
At least grandpa has been doing it long enough to learn from his mistakes…which we all inevitably make. No one is immune.

 

[Lorenzoid]

No sir, he was stating that the “random uncle” could have 8 dives vs an instructor who could have 100. My post was to point out that both of those examples are newbs. Still the blind leading the blind. I’d rather have a crusty ole grandpa teach my grandkids to dive than a 100 dive freshly minted instructor….you know, the same ones that kept killing themselves in caves because they are “instructors” or “experts”.

Yes, the 8-dive random uncle and the instructor with at least 100 dives may both be relative newbs, and that's what I understood @berndo to be saying in essence--that he wasn't so sure the random uncle with 8 dives would do a "better" job than the instructor with at least 100 dives. While it may be more likely the trained instructor, despite possibly having as few as 100 dives, would do a better job than the random uncle, they could very well do an equally poor job, and in the end they are both relatively inexperienced. Before that post, it seemed as though some were arguing that any random diver could teach scuba well enough. Comparing the random diver with your grandfather, with 30 years of experience, seems beside the point.