NACD Instructor standards violation
- Thread starter GDI
- Start date
Please register or login
Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.
Benefits of registering include
- Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
- A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
- You can make this box go away
PfcAJ
Contributor
Charlie murphy!!!!
Pete, you're helping to perpetuate the "agency vs the instructor" myth. I've read that PADI is the way the world learns to dive, so I should tell people never to take a course from XYZ instructor and only seek out PADI courses??
And it's really not that hard to become an nsscds or NACD instructor, and I have met some bad ones. Even Jim Wyatt has admitted there are probably a handful of bad nsscds instructors on this forum (in the etiquette thread). It's just time consuming to become a CDS or NACD instructor.
Don't get me wrong, there are some very good NACD and CDS instructors. But there are some very good non CDS/NACD instructors too that either feel a different approach is needed in cave training (ala GUE), or they feel it's the instructor that matters and not the agency they're affiliated with.
btw, did anyone else notice Edd and Jon are no longer listed as CDS instructors? I have spoken to Jon about it, and he simply feels the issue is the instructor and not the agency. I haven't spoken to Edd, but suspect he is just full bore PSAI now.
On the issue of advertising.. I have yet to see an advertisement campaign for Bern's in Tampa, but I cannot just walk in on a Saturday night and get a table. How are they so busy?
I have to seriously disagree. I think part of our problem is how instructors are made. When ever someone mentions they have been in cave diving so long you rebuke that, so I won't mention it,but from someone who did a lot of cave diving when there was only NSS_CDS and NACD versus now where we have an alphabet soup of agencies, we didn't have the same level of problems-and realize in the mid 90s there was MORE training going on. You have to see that cave diving has become driven by marketing. For example one agency offered double tanks for intro, people flocked to that. Another agency offered a jump for their intro equivalent, people flocked to that etc. NSS_CDS/NACD require their instructors to intern and pass an institute, and yes this is time consuming,but you have other agencies offering a fast track (note marketing) to being instructor, with some having you become an instructor in a long weekend with a course director. Nobody can guarantee the level of quality of an instructor from either training method, I would say that an instructor candidate that interns for several classes with different instructors, and passes an institute with several instructors there assessing them will have a higher probability of becoming a better instructor due to experience alone. Hence, the old paradigms as you mention in my opinion are better and have a proven track record.
---------- Post added May 31st, 2015 at 07:12 AM ----------
It is interesting how in the "information age" how we want things fast. Why wait for a book to hit the store, we can have an ebook now, no need to wait for a movie I can download it now. But, there are still some things we are willing to wait for, for example, 14 hour smoked brisket, 10 year old aged whisky. Hmmmm maybe there are some things that we can't rush for the quality we want and have to go slow and be patient. Maybe the method of becoming a cave instructor needs to be savored like some fine whisky or brisket.
- Messages
- 20,663
- Reaction score
- 15,191
- # of dives
- I'm a Fish!
The 'bad' ones have simply gotten bad over time... lazy even. The problem with most of the other bad (non-NACD, NSS-CDS) instructors is that they haven't taken the time. FWIW, I know two instructors for other agencies that did not pass the NSS-CDS skill assessment. I don't believe the converse is true.
Who the hell is Bern's in Tampa? I never heard of them... might be because they don't advertise.
However, looking at your signature line, you're advertising your site. It's a slippery slope when it comes to 'promoting' yourself. What might be acceptable this year could get you in trouble with a different set of peeps on the board who interpret it differently. I think we actually agree on this but our approach to a solution is a bit different. We're not going to kick the other agencies out of the cave instruction gambit. The only way to get people to the right instructors is to change our marketing approach. Unless, of course, you feel that it really doesn't make a difference.
People have always been impatient. Blaming the interwebs for that is myopic. Personally, I find that I usually have to wait for the Kindle version to come out and it's not always available. I prefer to read my books on my phone. When I travel, and I seem to do that a lot, it's a lot easier for me to carry digital versions of my textbooks on my kindle or phone than tote a hundred pounds of books where ever I go. The information age has been a catharsis for change on many levels. More information (including bad information) is available and far more quickly than ever before. It's created a far more informed public and a somewhat more susceptible one at the same time. As Abraham Lincoln once wrote: "Don't believe everything you read on the internet!" (I'm not sure who penned that originally, but I like it!)
You are correct, we would never throw an agency out of an area of training. Where success in marketing has been we can do it faster.now perhaps we need to use the marines old advertising campaign-"A few good men". Maybe it is time for an agency to sell quality over quantity, which has served GUE well. What the NACD and CDS needs to do is sell that their instructor core gets more training before they are turned loose on the public, and the public will brand recognize them for quality.
Precisely... not only would the NACD and NSS-CDS not try to throw any agency out of Cave Instruction, they couldn't even if they were so inclined. It is a quality over quantity message. Unfortunately, it's the instructors not the agency that draws in students for cave diving. PADI has done a stellar job of equating OW Scuba Certification with PADI certification. A lot of shops and instructors are simply by passed by potential customers because of their success. Due to that, many more potential instructors want that PADI rating. Hell, if you're not a PADI Instructor in the Keys, your options are severely limited. There are lots of things that either the NACD or the NSS-CDS can do to differentiate themselves from the other agencies, but unfortunately, they are filled with Luddites and are having a hard time transitioning into the information age.
ucfdiver
Contributor
Pete,
I think you've taken a sarcastic question and restated it as a summary of an existing rumor, AFTER the NACD president has directly addressed this "rumor". This "rumor" was squashed by Rick and never mentioned again by anyone but you, who stuck it in a week or two and pages later.
Similar threads
