Mentors?

[TSandM]

Well, I would agree with you that it's unlikely that someone is going to find a mentor without making some kind of social connection . . . I mean, to decide to mentor someone, you have to meet them AND decide you like them. I wouldn't mentor somebody I dreaded having to spend time with. I don't try to mentor anyone who isn't interested in that kind of diving relationship. (I don't act like your example, and push my opinions onto people who don't ask for them.)

So how do you make connections to gain mentorship? Well, you figure out how to hang out with people who are doing the diving you want to do. You hung out with the engineer types in your house, and you can figure out how to facilitate encounters with the kinds of divers you would like to learn from or emulate. Not all of them are going to be excited about helping somebody, but some will. I met my first and primary mentor by responding to a post advertising a "big buddy" dive here on SB. That experience led me into a niche community of divers where mentorship, and requesting it, are a way of life.

 

[Akimbo]

It is hard to say what motivates mentors, or what defines mentoring. For me, it was much less about offering me their opinion than leading me down a path to understand and arrive at solutions. Perhaps it was their nature, but I like to think they wanted me to really learn from the conversation rather than memorize a procedure. It is hard to imagine how anyone could put that much effort into this level of mentoring without liking a person and perhaps perceiving some hidden potential.

I believe that most of the people who post on Scubaboard are trying to give a little back for the information and insights received. That is not exactly my perception of mentoring in of its’ highest form, but valuable none-the-less. I would view being asked to mentor someone as extremely flattering and a huge responsibility. I doubt I am up to the task.

Sorry for rambling.

 

[g1138]

A mentor to me is an adviser. This can be a friend, dive buddy, or co-worker. They don't need to be more experienced than you nor do they have to have a higher rating than you. They just have to get you to think.
It's not necessary to have 1 mentor in scuba, having many helps out a lot. As long as they get you to think, and you're constantly exchanging ideas, they can be a mentor.
I wouldn't look to it as a formal teaching setting so I don't think there would be any breach in agency standards.

The idea of getting a mentor is to pass knowledge around and help to think outside the box. Usually mentorship goes both ways, it's just most people don't notice it as such.

 

[boulderjohn]

I will repeat take a moment to repeat the warning I have given many times in the past in similar threads. When one has a beginning level of knowledge in any activity, one cannot tell true expertise from mediocrity when evaluating more skilled people. Numerous studies have shown that. When I finally got around to taking ski lessons, it took a long time to eliminate roughly 75% (I never did any better) of the really bad habits I picked up from the helpful advice of my earliest mentors. If you are going to pick a mentor, don't just pick someone who has been diving for a while and assume that person is an expert. There are plenty of poor divers with hundreds of dives. There are also very good divers with far fewer dives. The trick is to know the difference and that is what is really hard.

 

[dbulmer]

John,
It's quite right that you draw attention to the downside of mentoring - ie the variabiilty of the advice being given but as I'm sure you''ll recognise the same problem can exist with paid instruction.

I can't speak for others but for me part of the mentoring process is learning to recognise when the mentor needs to speak up and when the mentor should say nothing and that can be hard.

Mentoring is not always about in water skills and knowledge - sometimes it's about who you found was a good instructor and who wasn't.
Things like which shop can get you a fill in time before the next dive, which shop can do a good service of gear.

Instructors can sometimes forget the little things which they take for granted (no criticism of instructors intended here) because they are not Mr/Mrs Average diver anymore.

 

[Them]

(I don't act like your example, and push my opinions onto people who don't ask for them.)

Definitely didn't mean to imply you did. It would shatter my perception of you to find out you were one of them.

I was doing my usual circuitous and oblique hinting that, because the rewards you cited aren't directly tied to helping (as objectively measured) but instead to the perception of helping (as felt by the person offering help), they can cause the exact issue boulderjohn called out later in the thread. As such it is wise (in my opinion) to be suspicious of assistance motivated by that drive.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Instructors can sometimes forget the little things which they take for granted (no criticism of instructors intended here) because they are not Mr/Mrs Average diver anymore.

Oh, I dunno about that ... anytime I get the urge to be Mr. Average, all I gotta do is go diving in some environment I don't often dive in ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[dbulmer]

Oh, I dunno about that ... anytime I get the urge to be Mr. Average, all I gotta do is go diving in some environment I don't often dive in ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

Bob,
What ? You are an instructor and want to go diving ? Are you mad ? I feel another virtual kicking is in order

 

[boulderjohn]

John,
It's quite right that you draw attention to the downside of mentoring - ie the variabiilty of the advice being given but as I'm sure you''ll recognise the same problem can exist with paid instruction.

Absolutely. If there is anything any ScubaBoard participant who has been on the site for more than two weeks should know, it is that there is a wide range of quality in the instructor ranks. There is a wider range of quality in terms of mentors. I have had several experiences in my OW classroom in which students told me that their mentors--their experienced friends who probably have about 20 lifetime dives--told them that once they got through all the dive planning and table exercises in the class they would never have to do anything like that again, because the divemaster always does that.

As I said, the problem is that in all activities, the beginner lacks the knowledge necessary to tell the good from the bad.

A few years ago I walked up to the bar by the beach at a resort in Belize to order drinks for our group. It took a while for me to be served, and while I was waiting I heard a diver explain the technical issues related to decompression to the non-diving patrons who had evidently asked him about it. He went into a lot of detail and then walked off, seeming to be quite proud of himself. As soon as he was out of earshot, one of the patrons said something like this to me: "I'm a doctor, so I know a lot of what he said is not true, and I am guessing from the pained expression on your face while he was talking that you know the truth. Can you explain it?" And I did. This is what I am talking about--he put together the clues from his unique background and the pained expression on my face (which I did not know I had) to make a determination that the person he was listening to was not an expert. You need to have at least that much information to make that judgment.

---------- Post Merged at 01:13 PM ---------- Previous Post was at 01:10 PM ----------

Oh, I dunno about that ... anytime I get the urge to be Mr. Average, all I gotta do is go diving in some environment I don't often dive in ...

As an example, I once read an opinion on ScubaBoard that every OW diver needs to have the skills needed to enter the ocean from the shore in heavy surf, such as is done in Southern California. I have dived in a lot of places and a lot of environments, but I have never done that. If I were to do that, I would be happy to accept an experienced local OW diver as my Mentor.

 

[dbulmer]

I think we're disagreeing to agree