Question Near incident. What should I have done?

[Vicko]

Seaweed Doc did a pretty good job of describing all the standards violations in this incident in post #88, so I won't repeat them.

The difference between OW instruction with students who are on their knees (the traditional way) and students taught while neutrally buoyant/horizontal trim is night and day. At the end of the pool sessions, students taught while neutrally buoyant already look like experienced divers. This takes no more time than traditional instruction. The students are constantly practicing buoyancy, even while waiting for their turn to do a skill.

The first article PADI published on this appeared 14 years ago. It should be standard practice by now, but I am sure most classes are still taught on the knees.

Absolutely agree, teaching people the right way, even by minimum agency standards, makes them better divers but you can't honestly say that it takes the same time or effort from the staff working in card printing factories.

I was offered to be a part owner/manager of a dive centre in the Philippines last year, they average 40 OWD cards a week with 2 instructors employed part time and a boat that would make a pasta strainer look sea worthy in comparison. It's a well respected 5* idc facility.
Have you ever seen a neutrally buoyant class with 6-8 or up to 12 students, one underpaid instructor and at best a skip year zero to hero 1 month old DM (with a hangover)?
I politely declined, not just because of the soul sucking nature of dive centres like those, but I believe that their business model is more likely to sink than said boat.

My point is that those 40 OWD a week hold the big agencies profitable, which in turn makes it possible for the rest of us to enjoy the sport that we love and teach other people that will continue to improve the current methods. Hopefully one day the bubble will pop and stories like the OPs will become less frequent.

 

[Kendall Raine]

The first article PADI published on this appeared 14 years ago. It should be standard practice by now, but I am sure most classes are still taught on the knees.

If I recall correctly you literally wrote the case for teaching while neutrally buoyant (v. on the knees). I accept you're right that a lot of classes are still taught on the knees. This must be a bit frustrating for someone who tried for so long to positively influence the paradigm. My question is why does on the knees persist?

I understand that teaching on the knees is easier with a large student teacher ratio (8:1?), allows for fewer training dives (no need to master buoyancy), and (speculating here) some instructors may not have very good buoyancy skills themselves, but is this just dive instruction economics? That is, a symptom of speeding more students through the cash register faster? Bringing more (low skilled) instructors into the network? Push back from dive shops who's economic goals are aligned with the more faster cheaper model since that (presumably) drives more gear sales. Is there a positive case (other side of the coin) for teaching on the knees (aside from faster cheaper)?

Sorry if this comes across as cynical, but if something looks like a duck and quacks like a duck...

 

[boulderjohn]

I understand that teaching on the knees is easier with a large student teacher ratio (8:1?),

Teaching the OW class (meeting the standards) while the students are neutrally buoyant takes no more time than teaching it on the knees. I did it on the knees for years, transitioned experimentally for about a year, and then taught neutrally buoyant for years.

 

[Kendall Raine]

Teaching the OW class (meeting the standards) while the students are neutrally buoyant takes no more time than teaching it on the knees. I did it on the knees for years, transitioned experimentally for about a year, and then taught neutrally buoyant for years.

OK. I believe you. Why would anyone still teach on the knees?

 

[boulderjohn]

OK. I believe you. Why would anyone still teach on the knees?

Because they refuse to believe it will make a difference, or they assume it will take much longer. Finally, they prefer to stick with what they know rather than learn something new.

For several years my primary job in public education was staff development--trying to teach existing teachers the instructional methods that research had shown were the most effective, most of which are very different from what most people have experienced growing up. I saw that same resistance to change there. The only way that such a change can occur is if it is required.

I experimented with it in the first shop where I worked, and a couple other instructors saw what I was doing and tried it as well. We were enthusiastic. I checked with our Course Director along the way, and he was sold on it, too. As Director of Instruction, he required everyone to do it that way, and that was that.

I later moved to a different shop, and the owner said it was not his place to tell the instructors how to instruct, so he left it all up to them if they wanted to change. None of them did at first, but when I left one or two had switched.

 

[The Chairman]

It is a bit harder to teach while buoyant... it takes a bit more care and a bit more time. If you actually care about your students it's not a big deal. No, I've never taught a class larger than 6 either. But then, it's my opinion that 8 is way too many.

However, the lie, myth, whatever you want to call it has been so ingrained to justify lazy instructors, that it's going to take a long, long time to get instructors to commit to the change. That's what it really takes, too.

 

[The Chairman]

No, I've never taught a class larger than 6 either.

While neutrally buoyant, that is.

 

[boulderjohn]

One more comparison to making changes in existing instruction....

About 50 years ago an educational researcher named John Goodlad wanted to do a comparison study to see which instructional programs were most effective. Different schools had adapted different programs and trained their teachers to follow those programs, so you would think that all he had to do was compare the results. Goodlad went a step further, though, and went into the classrooms. He found that whatever program the teachers had been trained to use really didn't matter. Once they were in the classroom on their own, they reverted to what they had always done, which was basically a repeat of how they themselves had been taught when they were students.

 

[Kendall Raine]

That's what it really takes, too.

Or the certifying agency to require that method of instruction... 14 years is a long time. Would guess a lot of new instructors have been minted/old instructors retired in that time. Back to training agency economics/incentives/ethos, I guess. Is the agency's business education (setting standards/best practices) or a simply marketing/publishing with education franchised out to the (dues paying) lowest common denominator.

Anyway, thanks guys for your thoughts and apologies to the OP for the hijack.

 

[The Chairman]

Or the certifying agency to require that method of instruction

That would be RAID and NASE at this point.