PADI vs NAUI

[The Chairman]

Which is better? Either and neither.

There is a philosophy that is fairly common in the dive industry: If I don't teach it, sell it or dive it, then it must be crap. It's genesis lies in the fact that the real differences in training and gear are very minute and so in order to stand out, to be truly superior (at least in your own mind). then you must denigrate everything else. It's a way to sell yourself by telling your potential clients that anything other than what you sell, teach or dive will ultimately come to a horrible, horrible end.

It just ain't so. In fact some of their histrionics remind me of that television preacher Jim Bakker! He was good at telling us what others believed and how awful they were for this and that. Sound familiar? In the end, he was just as corrupt as everyone else he chastised. To this day, when I see anyone constantly telling us how sinful, horrible or greedy another organization is, I immediately suspect their motivation. That's not entirely true. I don't really suspect that their motivation is biased: I know it is! When someone says that they do X and they come out again and again saying "No, they don't do X", I just have to laugh. If a PADI instructor tells me that they include gas management, then they DO. Only one training agency that I know of actually requires their OW students to calculate their SAC in their standards. You don't see them in this thread telling the other agencies that their students will surely die.

In the end, the instructor and the student's drive to become excellent are what really makes the difference. Some instructors inspire their students to excellence. Some are obviously more worried about scaring their students away from all the other agencies. Some students inspire instructors to excellence. I seem to get a lot of those, and I love them for it. They aren't looking to just get by. They want all the knowledge and skills they can absorb.

 

[boulderjohn]

I would like to point out something that is not readily apparent. I have been quite open about my practices and how I do things. I have been especially open about it in the Instructor to Instructor forum. Although PADI does not officially participate in those forums, I assure you that they read them. In a discussion with PADI headquarters last year related to the issue of instructor supervision and teacher student ratios in poor visibility, the person with whom I was corresponding for the purpose of answering a question referred to the thread that prompted my question. Other instructors are also quite open about this. PADI knows who we are, what we do, and what we publicly profess.

Next, we are not strangers to the central office. We published an article on OW instruction beyond the norms in the PADI professional journal, a process that required extensive discussion about the content. We have had Distinctive Specialties approved that go well beyond the standard recreational curriculum, and those, too, required extensive discussion. PADI has announced changes to the OW curriculum intended to start in 2014, and the topics that will be focused upon in those changes are the ones we have been especially vocal about adding to the curriculum.

I had an extensive face to face conversation with a member of the central staff in November.

We are not rogue operators. If we were doing something wrong, believe me, we would know about it.

 

[DCBC]

So, technically we cannot "fail" a student for not performing that additional skill right, but we don't fail a student for not doing the required skill right, either. We keep going until they get it. There is no difference.

I didn't even remotely suggest that you (or any Instructor for that matter) would fail a Student for "not doing a required skill right," or give-up on a Student. As far as the "There is no difference" comment, clearly you don't understand NAUI's philosophy.

No NAUI Instructor can say "what is required for NAUI Certification," unless they are the certifying Instructor. They can state NAUI's 'Minimum Standards,' but that's not what's necessarily required for certification. That's the difference. Another way to say it, is that PADI Instructors cannot modify the Standards, NAUI Instructors can (over and above minimums) and make these additions required for certification.

The same is true of additional material in the academic portion of the course. I don't give give the final written exam until my observation of student understanding tells me they are ready for it. In education terms, that is called formative assessment.

Yes, a PADI Instructor cannot examine on anything outside of PADI Standards and include this as a requirement for certification. A NAUI Instructor can.

The same is true about any additional academic material I provide. I can tell when a student has understood the material. Apparently you don't have that ability, but I am pretty confident that I can do it.

If you couldn't, I know I wouldn't certify you as an Instructor. One would think that I can as well, or I've been sliding through professionally all these years...

As has been established, there are differences between the two organizations, as there are differences between Instructors (between and within certification Agencies). It's the Client that must decide what type of training they want and choose an Instructor. As always, the choice is their's...

PADI has announced changes to the OW curriculum intended to start in 2014, and the topics that will be focused upon in those changes are the ones we have been especially vocal about adding to the curriculum.

As I understand it, both you and Peter have affected real change within the PADI organization. Your efforts are to be commended. All Instructors should work to make any necessary change within their Certification Agency. If changes aren't forthcoming, they should go to another Agency that's more in-line with their personal philosophy (as I did when I left PADI years ago).

---------- Post added April 21st, 2013 at 01:10 PM ----------

Only one training agency that I know of actually requires their OW students to calculate their SAC in their standards.

1/ NAUI: Required NAUI Basic Diver Course: Planning Skills - Measure, record and calculate individual air consumption (as SAC rate). 2.30 rev 1-01
2/ CMAS: One Star Diver Training Manual: Requirement Dive Planning - Calculate and project Surface Air Consumption rate for each dive.
3/ ACUC International: Instructor Manual, Open Water Program Requirements - Calculate and project Surface Air Consumption rate for each dive. Sec. 7.7

Clearly you're uninformed.

 

[The Chairman]

1/ NAUI: Required NAUI Basic Diver Course: Planning Skills - Measure, record and calculate individual air consumption (as SAC rate). 2.30 rev 1-01
2/ CMAS: One Star Diver Training Manual: Requirement Dive Planning - Calculate and project Surface Air Consumption rate for each dive.
3/ ACUC International: Instructor Manual, Open Water Program Requirements - Calculate and project Surface Air Consumption rate for each dive. Sec. 7.7

Now I know of four. Thanks.

Clearly you're uninformed.

Then comes the aspersion. Clearly, I don't follow the other agencies and I certainly don't attack them. That's why ScubaBoard is so great. If I don't know something, someone will gladly correct it. Some do it to help he out, while others do it to attack me as a person. Either way, I learn and that's a good thing. Does not knowing every agency that requires gas management make me any less of an instructor or a diver?

 

[Simon-]

Interesting aside.

The last pair of OW students I had were a pleasure to teach. Both older guys than the average student we get here, one in his 40's, the other in his 50's.

Both did well in the pool and very well in the open water.

Here is where the interesting aside comes in. The older of the 2 gents had previously (unknown to me) been certified. He hadn't dived for a number of years, and instead of doing a refresher, he wanted to undertake a whole course. His decision, and not one I was aware of. It was only when he said that he had learnt far more on this course than his previous one and he really enjoyed this course, did I find out he had dived before. Of course, curiosity gets the better of you, so I had to ask who he trained with before.

His previous cert? NAUI.

 

[The Chairman]

He hadn't dived for a number of years, and instead of doing a refresher, he wanted to undertake a whole course. His decision, and not one I was aware of. It was only when he said that he had learnt far more on this course than his previous one and he really enjoyed this course, did I find out he had dived before.

I just had this happen with a couple getting certified together. She was certified a while back in Hawaii while she was in the Navy, and he had always thought it was way too hard. She was somewhat perplexed at how I taught at first. I really have the students concentrate on buoyancy and trim the entire first session and don't introduce skills until the second or third session. By the end of the Closed Water sessions, her feelings had changed. Her opinion is that they didn't teach nearly this well back in the mid seventies when she got certified. To hear some speak of things, the standards have really gone down hill. Not according to her and yes, she was a NAUI OW student back then.

But neither of these cast a poor shadow on NAUI. Rather, they point out that our teaching methodology has greatly improved and new divers are not nearly the basket cases some would make them out to be. Of course, just like "back in the day", there are a few bad instructors and even fewer excellent ones. Most are average and strive to do a good job.

 

[RJP]

His previous cert? NAUI.

Surprised he thought he needed to re-take the class. What did he say he missed during his NAUI class? Perhaps he spent too much time reading SB and assumed that, after getting a NAUI cert, he was supposed to be able to WALK on water?

:d

 

[Quero]

This seems to be a constant rate of replies of fire-backs because you all feel insulted, and I can see that its because I'm riding PADI's arse. That's not my intention and I do recognize that there are good and bad instructors on both sides of the fence.

Zach, I can't speak for the others, but as far as I'm concerned, I'm not feeling the least insulted. My reply to you is not actually meant to change your mind, as I don't think you are able to take off your blinders and see any alternative viewpoint to your own; my intent is to respond to you for the benefit of other readers (if they ever get this far down into the thread) who may be misled by your incorrect perspective. Some people gain an allegiance to a particular organization (a sports team, a political party, a brand of beer, a scuba certifying agency), and they will argue until they're hoarse (or their fingertips begin to bruise from pounding on the keyboard) that "brand X" is inferior to whichever alternative they've chosen to support. I will not make any such claim that a particular scuba certifying organization is bad; what I will say is that for my particular circumstances I am working through one or more agencies in order to meet the needs of my students most effectively. We have a thread back in the I2I forum where people have explained clearly why they teach for a particular agency. For people like DCBC who want to make swimming requirements more stringent (for example), NAUI makes sense. But it doesn't follow from the fact that a particular agency is "better" for an individual's circumstances that it's categorically "better" for everybody.

I just believe one supports its instructors and their judgment calls more than the other. Call if loopholes if you must but if I were an attorney I'd rather fight PADI because their standards are so cut and dry while NAUI's are not always.

It's clear you're not a lawyer. When a liability case involving scuba diving goes to court, the defendant is not the certifying agency; it's the instructor. And the basis for the decision is not whether the agency's standards are deficient; it's whether the instructor demonstrated adequate duty of care. A failure to demonstrate duty of care may stem from a violation of standards, but it is not based on whether those standards themselves are sufficiently complete. If an instructor failed to add information about altitude diving (to use my earlier example) to the curriculum for a diver undertaking training at altitude and as a result that student diver were injured, it wouldn't matter a whit if that instructor was a PADI instructor or a NAUI instructor. Both agencies require instructors to include information and training appropriate to local conditions, and the failure to do so would be a breach of standards for either one, and a lack of duty of care.

 

[261311]

...not actually meant to change your mind...alternative viewpoint...misled by your incorrect perspective...I will not make any such claim that a particular scuba certifying organization is bad; what I will say is that for my particular circumstances I am working through one or more agencies in order to meet the needs of my students most effectively...it doesn't follow from the fact that a particular agency is "better" for an individual's circumstances that it's categorically "better" for everybody.

It's clear you're not a lawyer. When a liability case involving scuba diving goes to court, the defendant is not the certifying agency; it's the instructor. And the basis for the decision is not whether the agency's standards are deficient; it's whether the instructor demonstrated adequate duty of care. A failure to demonstrate duty of care may stem from a violation of standards, but it is not based on whether those standards themselves are sufficiently complete. If an instructor failed to add information about altitude diving (to use my earlier example) to the curriculum for a diver undertaking training at altitude and as a result that student diver were injured, it wouldn't matter a whit if that instructor was a PADI instructor or a NAUI instructor. Both agencies require instructors to include information and training appropriate to local conditions, and the failure to do so would be a breach of standards for either one, and a lack of duty of care.

Perspective is the way you see things, ie. an opinion. Those are neither necessarily factual nor something I expect others to pick up on just because that's how I see things. The part where we've been disagreeing and you go on to summarize what I feel I've been trying to communicate is slightly confusing, however. I'm glad you're working under circumstances that help you in providing the best learning environment for students, that's encouraging and great to hear. If you know how to swing the system in your legal favour as well to keep unsafe divers out of the water that are unable to accept the help you're offering, again- great.

While I'm not a lawyer you can't discredit agency standards when talking about a plaintiff vs. defendant because that is what it may very well come down to. Their duty of care is dictated by the standards they follow via the agency they teach under, if they can dictate their own reasonable extended standards, that by all means increases the potential (not necessarily output) for safer divers. Again, if someone is denied a certification while passing those clear-cut standards when an instructor doesn't feel they're ready, they have a right to hit the agency up, change check out dive location, request re-evaluation, etc. in order to achieve certification. Very few people will do this and most will see clear reasons why (ie. skill or safety) when it's explained to them, but for the self entitled whackos who want to play with fish and tug on the reef, this is an issue. I think having that ability to say no by creating higher standards or more advanced classes to pound those extra lessons into them so that they don't introduce other variables is a positive thing, and yes- that is my opinion. I think you're able to judge people based on character by discussing pre-course details with them to define these sorts of threats.

Not that I expect you to know this, but I was certified under the PADI system with what I feel exceptional instructors. I don't hate PADI nor do I love NAUI, I just see differences in the two systems. Both have their positives and negatives to work on. I don't feel any one or the other are incredibly "special" by means of ground breaking tutoring because fundamentally, it has and always will matter on a case by case basis, who teaches the student.

 

[Bob DBF]

It was only when he said that he had learnt far more on this course than his previous one and he really enjoyed this course, did I find out he had dived before. Of course, curiosity gets the better of you, so I had to ask who he trained with before.

His previous cert? NAUI.

I learned to dive from my dad, it was old school, pretty much memorized "The New Science of Skin Diving and SCUBA". Years later I took a NAUI/PADI OW class (PADI book). Although I had already covered the material and had experience diving, I learned a lot more in that class because I was not intimidated by the material, and was motivated and wanted to learn more, so I did. I used the same mindset to learn more in my AOW and other classes than the other students that certified with me.

Question is, did your student think NAUI was bad or he was ready for yours and to become a diver now?



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