NACD Instructor standards violation

[tursiops]

If I drive my Florida registered vehicle with my Florida driver's license where the speed limit is 70 on a Texas highway at 85, I'm not going to get stopped in either Florida or Texas. What someone teaching TDI has to do with their NACD or CDS certs is the same, exactly zero.

Interesting analogy. The drivers licenses apply across state lines by agreement between the states. It is not automatic. If it were, then my concealed carry permits would be valid everywhere. They are not. The cave agencies have no agreements. By analogy, nothing applies across agencies.

 

[kr2y5]

If an instructor is teaching for another agency within their standards at the time, that situation would need to be looked into by PSAI Global HQ and dealt with.

I'm wondering why it is necessary for an agency to try and control what an instructor does during the times when he/she is not acting as a representative of that agency... I can't think of any reason why this should be the case... does that have something to do with liability?

 

[Cap335]

For what it's worth I agree with Frank, the different training agenceis should not be involved in what happens while conducting a class for another training agency. If your woried about your liability or reputation have your instructors get thier students to sign some form saying they know your agency isn't involved. Everyone is using extreme examples but you can also run into these issues in smaller examples like depth vs end. Please stop overreaching.

Randy

 

[Jack Hammer]

I'm wondering why it is necessary for an agency to try and control what an instructor does during the times when he/she is not acting as a representative of that agency... I can't think of any reason why this should be the case... does that have something to do with liability?

Its not really about ”control”. Perhaps if you read the entire thread you may find some reasons... I've dove Eagles Nest and it is not a place for intro or cavern divers to be training at. There are plenty of other sites that are not a good idea.

For what it's worth I agree with Frank, the different training agenceis should not be involved in what happens while conducting a class for another training agency. If your woried about your liability or reputation have your instructors get thier students to sign some form saying they know your agency isn't involved. Everyone is using extreme examples but you can also run into these issues in smaller examples like depth vs end. Please stop overreaching.

Randy

Those ”extreme examples” are happening and that is what is being attempted to stop. A line needs to be drawn or its just business as usual...

 

[Wookie]

Then we can easily go back to my first example, which is right on the money. Should I have been censured by PADI for teaching SDI solo?

Look, I'm not advocating teaching trimix in Eagles Nest, or in Lower Orange Grove, or whatever Rob has been accused of doing. I wouldn't go in a hard overhead on a bet, so I'm not too likely to be effected.

My point is that one agency should not be bothered by what someone else is doing under the auspices of another agency. IF THEY ARE, they need to refund the instructor who became an instructor for that agency in good faith, and let them go on their merry way and teach for another agency.

I am no longer a PADI member by my own choice because I don't like the way they do business. If NACD doesn't like the way Rob conducts himself while teaching someone else's course, In my opinion, they owe him a bunch of cash for booting him, and he's STILL going to teach AN/DP in LOG and there won't be anything they can then do.

And yes, I do understand that the cave training agencies aren't there to make a profit, they exist for diver safety. Maybe they need to get out of the certification game and leave that to the training agencies.

 

[tbone1004]

I'm wondering why it is necessary for an agency to try and control what an instructor does during the times when he/she is not acting as a representative of that agency... I can't think of any reason why this should be the case... does that have something to do with liability?

why do think they are not a representative of that agency at all times? They are endorsed by the agency to represent them, whether they are officially teaching for that agency or not at a specific time has no bearing on who they represent. For example, let's pick on Jim Wyatt for a little bit, he has thick skin. He is currently training director for the CDS, but also is very high up in the rankings for PADI. He is not able to conduct any PADI training without having to think about the consequences for the CDS, and vice versa.

I.e. every time Jim teaches a CDS cavern class he is at risk of violating PADI's training standards because students are allowed to use doubles/sidemount and he has the ability to go 100ft deep and 200ft of total penetration. PADI limits to 70/130. He is still a course director for PADI and a representative of their Tec-Rec program, but he is also TD for the CDS. He can't worry about violating those types of standards for PADI when he is teaching a CDS course. PADI also forbids air sharing drills in the overhead which I don't understand, but it's the rules, I don't make them. Now, because this is so minor, and he is well within the limits of the agency he is teaching for, he is at little real risk. PADI doesn't have a full cave program and their cavern program is mainly for MX recreational "caverns" and other types of non-cave cavern diving, lava tubes, coral caverns etc from what I understand. Their limits are based purely on recreational cavern diving with no intent of moving into full-cave from what I understand, so their limits make sense. CDS Cavern is more set up as a stepping stone to full cave, different courses, different requirements, same name. Very blurry line.

Now, Jim is also an instructor with IANTD, TDI, and I'm sure some others. Where the lines start getting less blurry is when you are conducting classes that can actually be counted as multiple agencies and when you blatantly violate standards and are doing what is deemed by the agency to be putting students lives at risk. This becomes cause for concern when you are teaching for multiple agencies a course that is designed for the same end goal, but they have very different standards. One agency may decide that violating those standards is now an issue where you risk damaging the cave permanently and are potentially endangering students, another may not. In that case, you should go to the lowest common denominator and not try to play the game of "oh well I wasn't teaching for agency X at the time, so I can just go and violate their standards at will". If you disagree with an agencies standards that much that you are willing to blatantly violate them, you shouldn't teach for that agency any more. Find one you agree with. That is why you don't see any of the GUE cave instructors on the CDS list, they don't match. You see cross agency with CDS/NACD/IANTD because their base standards are pretty much the same for the basic cave progression so they can go back and forth or teach for all three at the same time and it's OK.

These instructors are put in a tough position as far as what agencies they want to support and teach for, but if you don't agree with one agencies standards and are willing to violate them, you probably shouldn't be active with them anymore.


Frank, to your point. If I was PADI, yes I would have asked you to either stop teaching, or request that you drop active PADI membership because you weren't abiding by the rules that you had been asked to follow. You should have gone to SDI full time if that was your case and while you would have left in good standing, no refunds should have been given unless it was partial membership fees for the year. There is a very well known instructor that was asked to help develop a program for GUE and he has declined because he was asked to stop diving solo in the caves and he won't. For some of the diving he does, solo diving is the safest way to conduct these dives and because GUE is unable to accept that, they aren't progressing with that course of action. It is a shame for GUE, but they are sticking to their guns. If the agencies had more hard and fast rules like that and enforced them, there would be a lot less of a problem and we wouldn't be having this multi-agency discussion. If the agencies want to play nice together, then have forums where they discuss their current and proposed standards, and agree on them. If you don't agree, don't work with that agency. Pretty simple.

 

[kr2y5]

why do think they are not a representative of that agency at all times? They are endorsed by the agency to represent them, whether they are officially teaching for that agency or not at a specific time has no bearing on who they represent. For example, let's pick on Jim Wyatt for a little bit, he has thick skin. He is currently training director for the CDS, but also is very high up in the rankings for PADI. He is not able to conduct any PADI training without having to think about the consequences for the CDS, and vice versa.

I understand that this might be the way things are setup, it is just unclear to me why that's necessary... just because things are what they are, it doesn't mean they're right. I see here an analogy to saying that a school teacher should never dress sexy on an evening out, or be ever seen in a casino, or else it would be grounds for dismissal because she allegedly sets a bad example for her students... back in the Mad Men era, this sort of attitude was pretty common, but in 2015, the idea sounds archaic. I don't understand why a member of different organizations can't just compartmentalize, and take on different roles (and responsibilities that come with them) at different times... of course, if someone is actively branding herself as a PADI/CMS instructor, and does not clearly set expectations ("This is a CMS class, I am not acting as a PADI instructor, and I will not be following the PADI standards here."), it's a different story... but it shouldn't have to be so hard to clarify this upfront. As a student, when taking a GUE class, I expect the instructor to stick to GUE standards, nothing less and nothing more. I don't need to even know what other agencies the instructor is allowed to teach for. Why should this concern me?

 

[tbone1004]

it should concern you because unlike the teaching analogy where they are on their own time, the instructor is still acting as a diving instructor conducting classes that an organization he belongs to deems unsafe to the students. The teacher analogy is inaccurate because the teacher is on their own personal time, not teaching. Example, 8th grade math teacher at a public school moonlights at a tudoring agency that condones corporal punishment and the teacher is found to be abusing students. They will likely get fired from their public school job because it reflects badly on her teaching ability and the school systems ability to maintain a professional staff. Public school bans corporal punishment because they want to or have to or whatever other reason, and they don't want teachers to be associated with that. Just because the other agency condones it and the teacher is allowed by that agency to practice it, doesn't mean that it reflects badly to the point where termination is justified due to damage of the previous agency.

Franks example, PADI expressly forbids solo diving, SDI condones it. Instructor is associated with PADI for whatever reason but wants to teach solo, PADI has said solo diving is dangerous and they forbid it, but now one of their instructors is teaching it. That looks very bad on PADI because one of their instructors is blatantly defying their recommendations and it brings uncertainty to the organization. "Well if this instructor thinks it's ok, why can't we do it too?"

Your example, if you take a GUE class, where redundancy, team diving, etc etc is beaten into you, and that same instructor is out teaching solo sidemount diving with wireless transmitters and fully relying on computers for decompression, then that instructor clearly does not believe in what GUE stands for. This would obviously never happen with GUE because that instructor would have been booted long before you ever saw that, but it's an example. The agencies need their instructors to believe in what they are teaching, if an instructor is violating standards because they don't agree with them, then the agency can't trust that instructor to be an advocate for what they are all about. The PADI example with Jim is gray because the courses are outlined differently and the rules are not hard and fast. GUE does not believe in solo diving, their instructors won't teach it because they don't believe in it. If they want to teach solo diving they have to go to another agency and they aren't able to teach with GUE anymore because they no longer believe in the core philosophy. This situation is similar, instructor thought they were better than the rules, or that the rules didn't apply to them, so they go find an agency that agrees with their thinking but still want the "prestige" of teaching with another agency so they skirt the rules and now we are in a conflict where one agency deems their activities unsafe but another promotes it. It can't work like that

 

[Wookie]

Frank, to your point. If I was PADI, yes I would have asked you to either stop teaching, or request that you drop active PADI membership because you weren't abiding by the rules that you had been asked to follow. You should have gone to SDI full time if that was your case and while you would have left in good standing, no refunds should have been given unless it was partial membership fees for the year. There is a very well known instructor that was asked to help develop a program for GUE and he has declined because he was asked to stop diving solo in the caves and he won't. For some of the diving he does, solo diving is the safest way to conduct these dives and because GUE is unable to accept that, they aren't progressing with that course of action. It is a shame for GUE, but they are sticking to their guns. If the agencies had more hard and fast rules like that and enforced them, there would be a lot less of a problem and we wouldn't be having this multi-agency discussion. If the agencies want to play nice together, then have forums where they discuss their current and proposed standards, and agree on them. If you don't agree, don't work with that agency. Pretty simple.

An excellent answer, thank you. and I agree, in an agency who's primary focus is safety instead of profit, I think that agency can make that determination. Most agencies, however, are motivated by the bottom line regardless of safety. NAUI will be my next crossover.

 

[ucfdiver]

I'm wondering why it is necessary for an agency to try and control what an instructor does during the times when he/she is not acting as a representative of that agency... I can't think of any reason why this should be the case... does that have something to do with liability?

Because instructors represent the agency they teach for.

Frankly if I were the NACD I would grant amnesty to all prior acts and tighten up the language in my standards to prevent this from happening again. Once that's done, email all instructors and require a reply email confirming that they understand the new terms and let that be the line in the sand that it will not happen again.

I've been a pretty outspoken critic of Rob taking students in sections of the cave where you know they'll blow viz, scooter training in twin, etc, but I *do* think going after him two years after the fact, especially given that other instructors were doing it as well, seems a bit unfair.

I understand that this might be the way things are setup, it is just unclear to me why that's necessary... just because things are what they are, it doesn't mean they're right. I see here an analogy to saying that a school teacher should never dress sexy on an evening out, or be ever seen in a casino, or else it would be grounds for dismissal because she allegedly sets a bad example for her students... back in the Mad Men era, this sort of attitude was pretty common, but in 2015, the idea sounds archaic. I don't understand why a member of different organizations can't just compartmentalize, and take on different roles (and responsibilities that come with them) at different times... of course, if someone is actively branding herself as a PADI/CMS instructor, and does not clearly set expectations ("This is a CMS class, I am not acting as a PADI instructor, and I will not be following the PADI standards here."), it's a different story... but it shouldn't have to be so hard to clarify this upfront. As a student, when taking a GUE class, I expect the instructor to stick to GUE standards, nothing less and nothing more. I don't need to even know what other agencies the instructor is allowed to teach for. Why should this concern me?

You mean to tell me if Jarrod was teaching a solo diving class for PADI one weekend, or deep air class for IANTD that it wouldn't detract from his position, or the public image of GUE?