I believe in a time frame to pass the required material and if the student does not or can not get there in the time frame, I fail them.
Well... If you have to work on a strict time-frame then pass/fail is the only realistic option but the bar also has to be realistic. It's impossible to have it both ways (performance based AND time based).
The issue I have with courses like DIR-F, like I said, is that the bar is quite simply set too high for the vast majority of people to reach it in the time frame. When you do that, it becomes unfair because you're selling something that you know you can't deliver in many (most) cases. That's like charging people to clean up the hard drive on their computer in an hour when you know it usually takes 2 hours and then telling most of them after an hour, "sorry, your computer is still a mess but I made a list of what still needs to be done...oh...and thanks for the money". If a business did that on a regular basis they'd be sued and/or word would get out that they were shifty and not to be trusted. GUE's only redeeming point in this respect is that the course evidently has enough added value that people don't think they got screwed even if the instructor fails to train them up to the bar that the advertisement told them they would be shooting for.
I think that's weird.
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On another topic:
Coming back to something I said above, I have, I must admit, "failed" students as well but not because I was out of time, but because they didn't want to do the work. In one case, for example, I had a student for a drysuit specialty whose buoyancy control (even without the drysuit) was poor and with the drysuit it was clear that the prescribed number of dives wasn't going to get him up to speed. He needed focused work on his buoyancy control. Basically, he had problems that I had inherited because neither he nor his previous instructors had worked on his buoyancy control up to that point.
After the 2nd dive I made with him I told him that in order to get drysuit certified that his buoyancy control was going to need to improve. I told him that I would give him some guidance but that he was going to have to make a number of dives in the process that wouldn't fit in the course format. I offered to negotiate a good rental deal for the gear with the shop and I offered to meet with him every 4 weeks until his buoyancy control issues were sorted and then I could certify him. I also gave him the option (if he wanted to go faster) of taking a step back, doing a PPB specialty and some dives first and then picking up the drysuit specialty again after that. Either way it was going to take time and effort.
He refused. He more or less said that it was too much work and he'd rather just not have the card. He had the option but I had to fail him. There have been others like this as well. In all cases they were people who had been shuffled through the system by other instructors without fixing basic issues.
Another one I can remember was a guy who washed out of AOW because he was terrified of clearing his mask. I told him he needed extra time to focus on his mask issue before going further and just the thought of "having" to do more mask drills made him utterly refuse. I asked the shop to refund his money and told him he was welcome back when he was ready to do the work. He had the opportunity to get his mask issues sorted but opted out, which was beyond my control. We even had one wash out of DM class for the same reason. She couldn't clear her mask. I hate having to tell people these things but if you really focus on results then it can't be avoided.
The point being that, yes, I know that 'time frame' isn't the only reason you will have to fail the odd student. I just think that when time frame is the *main* reason why you're failing students that you're doing something wrong.
On the success side, I once had a student who I made about 40 dives with before certifying her. She had major stress issues and it was necessary for her to have a lot of time in the water. I even asked her to add meditation practice to her life for the general ability to live in the "here and now". She took it very seriously and not only got her c-card but made some really positive changes in her life generally in the process. I like to think of this as an example of what you can achieve with a focus on doing whatever it takes to get ta student to the bar. On the flip side of this you might think we lost a lot of money on this student but she paid for all that extra time. Money was not her problem, but she had a life long dream of learning how to dive and finding someone with the patience to look beyond the stress and teach her the way she needed it was difficult.
R..