PADI course for idiots?

[blc]

Ten year old and college students in the same class??? So we dumb down the curricular to the ten year old level? That sounds more like a recepie for lowering the standards of education. 50% of the people are dumb, stupid, idiots etc??? Makes me wonder which side of the 50% the instructor may fall on. Hey, 50/50 chance?

If public schools, state colleges followed this pattern we would end up with some of the lowest educated people in the world. Wait, don't we aready have that problem in publics schools in the US?

Should classes ( any type not just scuba) be set up so that any person regardless of a students learning skill levels or age be capable of passing it their first time thru? What happend to, if you dont get this the first time around you will have to take the class again or obtain extra tuturing if necessary. There is probably a very good reason you dont see many ten olds and college/adults students in the same classes anywhere else. Or maybe that would just be bad for the scuba industry in general. Can't sale enough equipment if idiots and kids have to take the class two or three times to be qualified to use it can we?

How to pack a bag?? Yea maybe it deserves a brief honorable mention but its kind of like trying to teach common sense? So you packed your bad backwards and had to scatter your gear all over the boat. After the gawking, snide look/remarks or dressing down from the captain you get. Lesson Learned! You can't teach eveything in a class or maybe you can? Did you have to drive a car to class? Maybe we need to start with a driver refresher? Geez where does it end?

Teach the basic skill sets, aimed at a reasonable level, necessary to become a compentent diver. Lifes experiences are the best lessons learned for the rest.

PS: Probably the best way to teach a kid is to develope a video diving game with all levels of experience chasing bad guys at various depths, thru wrecks, caves etc with penalities for bad diving habits while doing so. Seems to be how they learn everything else lol, Just kidding>

 

[Mike2Fst]

My wife is just in the process of getting her OW certification and I was having a flick through her course book. It appears to be written for school children, honestly are people so stupid that they need to be told what order to pack their equipment bag? For the first time in my life I am scared to dive, because apparently there are people out there who are diving and need a book to teach them basic life skills.

Yes!!

 

[danvolker]

I have had both 10 year old students and college professors sitting in the same class.

Tell me how you would write a course that would meet the needs of both of them.

Actually, this is "an opportunity" for PADI.....They can create a new Course system called " PADI IQ OW1, through PADI IQ DM or IQ Instructor", and it will be aimed at the more gifted, it will teach more, it will teach faster, and it will turn out divers with vastly better training. It will also cost more, because it teaches more. It could also bridge the gap between present PADI advanced divers, and GUE or UTD divers..... I know GUE likes a PADI FRONT END in a dive shop, to initiate a non-diver into diving....I think most realize the GUE extreme is too much for non-divers, at least in America with our lack of delayed gratification and desire to instantly be having fun. The PADI IQ divers would find the knowledge path GUE offers VERY COMFORTABLE, with the background they already had....potentially even pushing the GUE instructor to take them much farther than they can typically go now....Or....it would allow PADI to create its own POST CERTIFICATION instruction series that is much more like what GUE does, and then garner the big bucks from this as GUE does.

Put a 10 year old with ADD in a class, along with a gifted College Student or MD, and the course will need to go at the pace of the 10 year old. This GUARANTEES that the gifted will waste a great deal of their time, learning in 3 hours per day what they could learn in 5 minutes per day.... Given the choice, and the desire to learn to become a good diver, the GIFTED should be willing to pay more, to get 3 real hours of intense learning per day of the course ( just picked 3 hours as a number--not that this needs to be the duration).

The alternative----the Gifted can read each chapter in the existing book and be totally done in about 45 minutes or less, including testing.... but the "gifted" does not get to benefit from having the instructor work with them on special insights or questions that came to them while reading--this is sad, but a probable path.
Kind of like a gifted kid being stuck in an urban, inner city public school class to learn the material in 8th grade, while they would be capable of learning more than the average graduate in the class, in less than one week. The solution costs the parents more money---a different curriculum, and different classmates.

 

[boulderjohn]

Ten year old and college students in the same class??? So we dumb down the curricular to the ten year old level?

Scuba instruction is what it is. It has been determined that a 10 year old is capable of being certified to learn scuba. It is no0t dumbed down to that level--that's where it starts.

Why do you want to take a course that's easy enough for a 10 year old to pass and make it harder just because you have a college professor taking the course?

 

[Bali1]

My daughters got their OW at 10 and 13 last Summer. Both are good swimmers and were very excited to get certified as we are traveling to the Turks/Caicos in a few weeks.

I can say that the course and the book were simple for my eldest but the 10 year old had to work a bit. She could learn the concepts fine but application of concepts was a different matter. That is the way grade school works currently. I am looking forward to family diving - even staying shallow to help the kids.

If I did this as an adult I would be shaking my head too - but that is with the benefit of 40 years of diving experience.

 

[j2s]

And never forget that 50 percent of the population is below average. And I suspect that the average isn't very high.

All you have to do is read the post about the guy on the beach w/a rebreather he got from E-Bay and was asking passers-by how to use it :O !!!!!!....Outta' gene pool genius !!!!!

 

[simonru]

I put my mask in a fin pocket for both packing and on a boat. No problems so far!

I remember this being a part of the NAUI course from the last century, so it's not just PADI. People rarely think to pack in reverse order and have no clue how crowded a dive boat can get. Part of my duty as an instructor is to prepare them for when they are diving without me on some cattle boat somewhere out yonder.

When I fly I put my mask around my neck.
Then the female cabin crew know I'm a diver.
I hope one day it will earn me an upgrade.
It also confuses security staff.

 

[SeahorseDeb]

If it's just for reference, get the old version of the Encyclopedia of Recreational Diving as it will not give you ADD while you are reading.
Aside from being less expensive, the older book keeps to the subject and dosn't use a lot of unessary color and pictures to entertain; I guess if you can't read they figure you might as well be entertained.



Bob
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I may be old, but I’m not dead yet.

Bob, I just couldn't pass this one up, have to tag onto your statement about the pictures. How about printing the training manuals with pictures of cold water diving in very very low visibility?

 

[Jim Lapenta]

That would directly contradict the marketing strategy of this being so easy, simple, and quick that is used to justify two weekend or in some cases one weekend as being sufficient. People might realize those are bs and insist on more comprehensive training in the initial class. We can't have that now, can we?

Sent from my DROID X2 using Tapatalk 2

 

[chs8084]

At the risk of being flamed, I am a college professor, in education, and I think PADI does a pretty good job with their materials. They are well designed for self-study, with advance organizers and frequent self -assessments. Do I wish they went into more detail? Sure, but I hope that my instructors can answer some of the more detailed questions. I also found the encyclopedia of recreational diving useful. Just my two cents, particularly as someone who appreciates the modular approach. I doubt I would have gotten certified if it was not as approachable as it is, and that would be a huge loss for me.