Rambling thoughts, opinions and examples. It's gotten pretty easy to bash training agencies, with PADI taking the most heat, but I find such taunting misplaced.
1) Every event noted, including reef bashing, is covered during the PADI course. Failure to learn these basic principles lies either with the instructor or student, but the standards are there and should be taught and reinforced.
2) Yes, PADI creates poor instructors. I doubt this is unique to PADI. Even the YMCA, with very high standards, used to generate instructors with as little as 50 dives. I was apalled at the lack of skill and experience at my own IE, let alone the inability to teach.
Poor instructors are unleashed every day to teach students. It's up to angencies, resorts and LDS's to ensure that students receive proper training and safety. Quality control is paramount to any system.
My LDS required that I teach as a team with every other instructor in the shop before being let loose on students. Every DM must apprentice with each instructor and be evaluated before becoming a shop DM. I can guarentee you we have no incompetent instructors or DMs.
3) I believe PADI standards are more the enough to allow for the safe participation in recreational scuba diving if properly taught and learned.
I tell students that we cover two types of skills, the first being those that they must master for every dive, including gearing up, mask clearing, buoyancy. The second type consists of dealing with various emergencies, including OOA situations, equipment failure, entanglements. To say one is more important than another is moot, they all need to be learned.
My LDS has the advantage of an indoor pool, plus we have many staff DMs. Not only does the student have to master each skill, but we take to time or use the time to have the student practice repetitively after mastery demonstration. When I'm doing the next skill one on one, the DM will practice previous skills with the students.
Four dives aren't much at the lake, but beside the skill demonstration, each dive includes a tour with dive 1 being nothing but a tour. This becomes invaluable to the student. The difference in buoyancy between dives 1 and 4 are unbelievable. Cheating the student out of this part of dive robs them of a valuable lesson, but I've seen it happen. Students are encouraged to do excursion dives and post completion dives toward AOW. This is a big opportunity to increase their learning, not just "marketing".
Logging their dives is a requirement. This is the real world application of tables. Many have forgotten how to do their tables since the classroom. They don't leave the lake without knowing how to do their tables.
4) AOW is a misnomer. AOW doesn't make you an advanced diver. I hate the term, but that's what we got. Taking this immediately after OW is a natural extension of the OW course. It allows time to focus on various aspects of diving only briefly covered during OW. As cheezy as it might seem to experienced divers, isn't it better that they begin a life of diving with 9 training dives than 4? Sure, AOW doesn't mean they are ready to conquer the world, but again, the difference in skill mastery is tremendous from dives 1 to 4 and even better if you can get them to dive 9. Remember, it's a learning CURVE. The steep part of the curve is early. Better to have them training under an instructor for those dives, eh?
5) I don't care what agency or what standards of OW training you follow, you will always have students who barely make it, and then ignore, forget and plain refuse to follow what they've been taught. Reef crashers come in all experience levels and all levels of malice from accidental to reckless disregard. I know which ones I hate the most.
No one leaves my class without proper training, understanding and meeting standards. Does this mean I wouldn't be potentially embarassed by their actions after they are gone and on their own?
It's easy to point fingers and make snap judgements. Do we want to hunt down the driving instructor of every lousy driver we see on the road?
Enough rambling.
1) Every event noted, including reef bashing, is covered during the PADI course. Failure to learn these basic principles lies either with the instructor or student, but the standards are there and should be taught and reinforced.
2) Yes, PADI creates poor instructors. I doubt this is unique to PADI. Even the YMCA, with very high standards, used to generate instructors with as little as 50 dives. I was apalled at the lack of skill and experience at my own IE, let alone the inability to teach.
Poor instructors are unleashed every day to teach students. It's up to angencies, resorts and LDS's to ensure that students receive proper training and safety. Quality control is paramount to any system.
My LDS required that I teach as a team with every other instructor in the shop before being let loose on students. Every DM must apprentice with each instructor and be evaluated before becoming a shop DM. I can guarentee you we have no incompetent instructors or DMs.
3) I believe PADI standards are more the enough to allow for the safe participation in recreational scuba diving if properly taught and learned.
I tell students that we cover two types of skills, the first being those that they must master for every dive, including gearing up, mask clearing, buoyancy. The second type consists of dealing with various emergencies, including OOA situations, equipment failure, entanglements. To say one is more important than another is moot, they all need to be learned.
My LDS has the advantage of an indoor pool, plus we have many staff DMs. Not only does the student have to master each skill, but we take to time or use the time to have the student practice repetitively after mastery demonstration. When I'm doing the next skill one on one, the DM will practice previous skills with the students.
Four dives aren't much at the lake, but beside the skill demonstration, each dive includes a tour with dive 1 being nothing but a tour. This becomes invaluable to the student. The difference in buoyancy between dives 1 and 4 are unbelievable. Cheating the student out of this part of dive robs them of a valuable lesson, but I've seen it happen. Students are encouraged to do excursion dives and post completion dives toward AOW. This is a big opportunity to increase their learning, not just "marketing".
Logging their dives is a requirement. This is the real world application of tables. Many have forgotten how to do their tables since the classroom. They don't leave the lake without knowing how to do their tables.
4) AOW is a misnomer. AOW doesn't make you an advanced diver. I hate the term, but that's what we got. Taking this immediately after OW is a natural extension of the OW course. It allows time to focus on various aspects of diving only briefly covered during OW. As cheezy as it might seem to experienced divers, isn't it better that they begin a life of diving with 9 training dives than 4? Sure, AOW doesn't mean they are ready to conquer the world, but again, the difference in skill mastery is tremendous from dives 1 to 4 and even better if you can get them to dive 9. Remember, it's a learning CURVE. The steep part of the curve is early. Better to have them training under an instructor for those dives, eh?
5) I don't care what agency or what standards of OW training you follow, you will always have students who barely make it, and then ignore, forget and plain refuse to follow what they've been taught. Reef crashers come in all experience levels and all levels of malice from accidental to reckless disregard. I know which ones I hate the most.
No one leaves my class without proper training, understanding and meeting standards. Does this mean I wouldn't be potentially embarassed by their actions after they are gone and on their own?
It's easy to point fingers and make snap judgements. Do we want to hunt down the driving instructor of every lousy driver we see on the road?
Enough rambling.
