PADI 2 day OW class

[PerroneFord]

Wayward son, are you a dive professional? How were you able to assist your wife without violating standards? Or did you simply watch and wait, then do the skills with your wife on your own time outside of class?

 

[Wayward Son]

I worked with her, outside the class & not in the water on scuba. I did work with her in the water with snorkeling gear.

In the class, when she hit a problem, the instructors solution was to have her get out of the pool & tell her that maybe she should think about dropping the class.

If I had not been a long time diver (started back in 1972-73) & she was just someone with a desire to dive & no one else to turn to, she would not be a diver today.

 

[jbd]

Or did you simply watch and wait, then do the skills with your wife on your own time outside of class?

Not speaking for WS but my guess is he did exactly this.

The beauty of it is that he had the time and the perspective/focus to see what the problem was. In the standard large group classes with very little time scheduled there literally is not enough time for the instructor to focus on the problem and make necessary corrections. New students just don't see this as the reality as they have no way to compare it to anything else.

 

[Wayward Son]

That was the problem. I dunno what PADI calls for, but I think that with a group that big, 10 or so students, the instructor should have an AI or a DM who actually works with students be in the water with him. The group is too big to be able to deal with people who don't just get it right away.

 

[jbd]

In the class, when she hit a problem, the instructors solution was to have her get out of the pool & tell her that maybe she should think about dropping the class.

That is really a sad way to deal with things. IIRC, you mentioned there was a DM assisting with the class. Would it have been so implausible to have the DM supervise the students who were doing just fine while they practiced so the instructor could have focused on your wife and the difficulties she was having so she could get caught up to the group

 

[jd950]

Having just gone through this process, here are my thoughts: I did classes and pool in four evenings over two weeks. That was the longest I could find. It was nice to have time between classes to think about things I liked and didn't like, understood well or wondered about. Doing these in two days would have limited that. Pool temps varied so on some classes I used a wetsuit, and some not, which affected weighting and bouyancy. I also tried some different BCs and regulators.

If I had experienced any difficulties, there would have been time to work on the problem and if necessary get an extra pool session while still doing the two-week class. I had no problems, but a couple of people needed extra time to figure out the RDP and my dive buddy had an injury and has to make up a dive. Things can happen.

I came away thinking that the class should have been at least another 4-8 hours of pool time and probably at least another 4 hours of class time. I am glad that the class I took allows me to return for an additional pool session to work on anything I want with an instructor before my open water dives and because my dive buddy had that injury on the last night of class/pool and couldn't complete his skills, I am going back with him next week when he finishes the skills tests and I think I will be able to talk the instructor into letting me into the pool to work on buoyancy some more.

I almost took the two-full-day class and am glad I didn't. Given the chance, I would take as much time in the water as I could get, and would spread it out over at least the two weeks.

Edit to add:

This is in response to the original question and has nothing to do with the sub-topic that has arisen.

Also, the format was that each evening we did a couple of hours of class on one or two chapters, and then a couple hours of pool time working on the skills, in roughly the order set out in the PADI book. I would describe my PADI class as primarily an emergency management course, designed to teach you the bare basics and what to do in the event of a problem. I assume and hope I will get more "how to dive properly" stuff in the open water dives and beyond. If not, I will just have to learn it on my own or elsewhare.

 

[Wayward Son]

My other LDS, which I did not know about at the time my wife decided to learn to dive, still teaches NAUI & more importantly, they teach it the old way. 6 weeks & over 55 hours of training, evenly split between classroom & pool.

So when my daughter decided to dive, I took her to this class. She also had problems with a couple of skills. At the end of the 1st course she wasn't ready, so we held her over & had her repeat the pool sessions. at the end of that one, she had it.

But they had a class of 10 or so. In the pool, it was 1 instructor, 1 AI and 1 DM & the DM didn't just watch. They broke the students up into groups of 2 or 3 & each group had it's own person to teach the skills. They went over them until they had them down pat. to the point where on the final pool night, they were put through the wringer & had simulated failures to deal with. masks blocked out with sponges so they couldn't see, then they'd have the mask flooded, air cut off, both at the same time, tank bands released on the BC, fins removed. Buddy breathing (actually swapping the reg back and forth, not just using an octo) while swimming, while swimming with the mask removed, etc. They were able to cope with all of it, no problem.

I have confidence that my daughter got good training & has the basics of being a good, safe diver down solid. She may well go on for more advanced training.

 

[Karibelle]

My experience with auditing while my wife took a 2 week PADI course was that there were 10 people in the class, 1 instructor, and 1 DM in the water. The DM did nothing but watch, he never assisted in teaching anything.

Water skills were a rapid fire round of "watch me do this, then each of you do it" & God help the student who had trouble with a skill, such as my wife. rather than figure out why she had a problem, solve it & teach her the skill, her instructor simply kept saying "some people aren't meant to be divers & I think you're one of them", ie, he didn't teach her.

...


But, it's a reflection of our world. we live in a fast food society, we want it now, now now, RIGHT NOW! damn it, don't be taking 10 minutes to get my food. This has worked it's way through our society. we want our wars to be over before we get bored with them, any problem fixed while we wait & we're not waiting long before we're mad bc we're waiting, etc. and now we want to learn life-dependent skills fast so we can get in the water & start having fun. The agencies that are doing it fast are giving us what we want, right or not.

Well, if she had been in my class, that's not what would have happened. In my class when there's a DM, that is his role - to work with students who need extra help with skills. I prefer, rather than use a DM, to team teach with another instructor, so students requiring extra time and attention can get that attention from an instructor. As an example, in a recent class of 11 with two instructors, we broke into a group of 8 (those who weren't experiencing difficulties) and a group of 3 (including two who did need a bit more time). That seems to be working better.

"They didn't want it good, they wanted it Wednesday." I don't disagree with your point here. I feel it is our job as instructors to ensure that students still get a good education - even when the students don't really know what that means.

kari

 

[Karibelle]

Wayward son, are you a dive professional? How were you able to assist your wife without violating standards? Or did you simply watch and wait, then do the skills with your wife on your own time outside of class?

WS cannot violate the standards; the professional is the one who is or isn't meeting standards.

Do you want to conduct this discussion here, or in PM? Choose, please.
kari

 

[Wayward Son]

Kari, in your class she prolly would have been OK. Clearly some instructors are far better than others, regardless of the agency.

In this case the DM did nothing. he was in the water, but I never did figure out why.