Red Flags or Misplaced Expectations?

[berndo]

My IDC was a class of 8, my IE was 50 candidates. About half failed.

That's nowhere near normal. And it wasn't 20 years ago. When was this?
There used to be shops (and maybe still are) that would sell IDC/evaluation/accomodation/food packages with a 'pass guarantee'.
I started diving in the 90s and was an instructor by the early 00s. It was the same sh_t show then as much as it is today. It might have been different before that. I don't know. Not sure I've ever even heard about someone having to do an evaluation twice, PADI or SSI.

 

[boulderjohn]

I am curious as to why we are talking about PADI when the shop is SSI.

It was maybe a decade ago that I dived with an SSI operation in Mexico, and I had a long talk with the shop owner during a boat ride to the dive site. He was taking a student out for his last dives before being certified as an instructor. Yes, the dive shop owner had done all the instruction of the student, and he was now certifying him as an instructor. No one else was involved.

He was very upset about the fact that SSI was changing the rules and would in the future require instructors to be tested by an agency representative. He liked things the way they were, and he pointed to the student as an example. He said the student wanted to be an instructor at a tropical resort, so as his instructor, he could focus instruction on that goal. That meant he could skip everything in the course content that did not matter for an instructor at a tropical resort. That is what he had done, thereby saving a whole lot of time and effort in the process. Now he was going to have to teach the whole damned course.

So that has all apparently changed, and SSI instructors must now be evaluated by someone from the agency, not the person who trained them.

And, for the purposes of what people seem to find confusing in this thread, it should be pointed out that SSI instructors are not evaluated by PADI. PADI has nothjing to do with it.

 

[Wookie]

That's nowhere near normal. And it wasn't 20 years ago. When was this?
There used to be shops (and maybe still are) that would sell IDC/evaluation/accomodation/food packages with a 'pass guarantee'.
I started diving in the 90s and was an instructor by the early 00s. It was the same sh_t show then as much as it is today. It might have been different before that. I don't know. Not sure I've ever even heard about someone having to do an evaluation twice, PADI or SSI.

It was far longer ago than 20 years. The IDC was in Maui, we traveled to the big island for the IE.

 

[Wookie]

I am curious as to why we are talking about PADI when the shop is SSI.

It was maybe a decade ago that I dived with an SSI operation in Mexico, and I had a long talk with the shop owner during a boat ride to the dive site. He was taking a student out for his last dives before being certified as an instructor. Yes, the dive shop owner had done all the instruction of the student, and he was now certifying him as an instructor. No one else was involved.

He was very upset about the fact that SSI was changing the rules and would in the future require instructors to be tested by an agency representative. He liked things the way they were, and he pointed to the student as an example. He said the student wanted to be an instructor at a tropical resort, so as his instructor, he could focus instruction on that goal. That meant he could skip everything in the course content that did not matter for an instructor at a tropical resort. That is what he had done, thereby saving a whole lot of time and effort in the process. Now he was going to have to teach the whole damned course.

So that has all apparently changed, and SSI instructors must now be evaluated by someone from the agency, not the person who trained them.

And, for the purposes of what people seem to find confusing in this thread, it should be pointed out that SSI instructors are not evaluated by PADI. PADI has nothjing to do with it.

I cannot speak to how a SSI candidate is evaluated. I have zero experience. I can speak to how a PADI candidate was evaluated in the ‘90’s, and I felt it was an on-point evaluation of how the system should work. It had changed in 1999, when I observed my wife’s IE, although a number of people failed that IE out of about 75 candidates. Those were some long-assed days, evaluating 75 candidates. They started Friday evening with the test, which knocked out maybe 20 candidates who just weren’t prepared.

 

[rmssetc]

Interesting.. Schools- or better yet, places of learning, are in the business of selling an education. They don't care if you have to take out a loan, a parent + loan, refinance your house, borrow from friends and relatives...or anything else.

And not just traditional colleges, any specialty also..

This thread is drifting faster than a diver in Cozumel.

@Scuba_Jenny -- do you have any experience in the business of higher education, other than paying tuition? I ask because the vast majority of the 100s professors and college administrators who I know personally are deeply concerned about how students will pay for their education and the value of that education after graduation. Maybe your impression of higher education comes from past experiences that no longer reflect much of the field -- concerns about the cost and value of education have changed a great deal in the past 20+ years. While not every single educator or institution puts the student first, particularly in for-profit categories, your description certainly doesn't fit the attitude at traditional colleges & universities with which I am familiar.

 

[boulderjohn]

I cannot speak to how a SSI candidate is evaluated. I have zero experience. I can speak to how a PADI candidate was evaluated in the ‘90’s, and I felt it was an on-point evaluation of how the system should work. It had changed in 1999, when I observed my wife’s IE, although a number of people failed that IE out of about 75 candidates. Those were some long-assed days, evaluating 75 candidates. They started Friday evening with the test, which knocked out maybe 20 candidates who just weren’t prepared.

I did the PADI IE about 20 years ago. I thought it was pretty fair and through. The hardest part was the rescue scenario. We did it in a warm environment, wearing nothing but swimsuits with our gear. Once the BCDs were removed, controlling victim buoyancy on the surface was difficult, especially with the body-building victim I had to work with. In almost all cases, the victim's legs began to sink as we neared the extraction point, because we were not used to having to deal with that lack of buoyancy. My body-building friend had no trouble, because his unconscious victim (me) provided some slight, unexpected gentle finning at that point. I did well, too, largely because having been the victim first, I knew what would happen.

 

[berndo]

He was very upset about the fact that SSI was changing the rules and would in the future require instructors to be tested by an agency representative. He liked things the way they were, and he pointed to the student as an example.

Are you sure that wasn't way longer ago than 10 years? 20 years ago, SSI was sold and moved HQ to Germany. Even before that, an instructor trainer did the ITC and a certifier did the evaluation for OWIs. After that, the specialty instructor ratings are just sold without any class just by the ITs/ICs.

And, for the purposes of what people seem to find confusing in this thread, it should be pointed out that SSI instructors are not evaluated by PADI. PADI has nothjing to do with it.

Tomato tomato

SSI is worse for the grunt instructors but in the great scheme of things they're both the same. For the most part, whatever appies to SSI also applies to PADI.

 

[boulderjohn]

do you have any experience in the business of higher education, other than paying tuition? I ask because the vast majority of the 100s professors and college administrators who I know personally are deeply concerned about how students will pay for their education and the value of that education after graduation.

Interesting.

As a graduate student at the University of Colorado, I worked part time as a TA. We had a faculty meeting in which the chancellor made sure we understood that we were a research institution, not a teaching institution. Our primary focus was to be on our research, putting in only as much time for our teaching as was necessary.

At about that time, I was in the school bookstore, and I saw the stack of required texts for a 100 level American literature class called Major American Writers. I was then working on my Ph.D in English and American Literature. I had never heard of a single author or book title that was being required for the course. Evidently someone was working hard on some obscure research and bringing the 100 level students along for the ride.

 

[tursiops]

. Not sure I've ever even heard about someone having to do an evaluation twice, PADI or SSI.

A friend of mine failed her IE earlier this year, and to redo it at another location later.

 

[boulderjohn]

Are you sure that wasn't way longer ago than 10 years? 20 years ago, SSI was sold and moved HQ to Germany.

You are mistaken in much of this. When the dive shop in this thread switched to SSI a dozen years ago, The owner of SSI (Doug McNeese) gave us the history while conducting a week-long workshop.

He was the owner of 4 shops in Tennessee that were all associated with NASDS, and the NASDS headquarters was across the street from his flagship store. His stores were doing great because of his marketing strategies, but NASDS was struggling. He bought NASDS, and he kept his scuba shops. As the owner of NASDS, he made his marketing strategies a part of NASDS strategies.

Then NASDS merged with SSI, taking the name SSI. He moved to SSI headquarters in Fort Collins, Colorado. Eventually, he bought out the old SSI owners and took over himself. The old NASDS strategies became SSI strategies. The week-long workshop was all about that.

I left the shop right after that and am not fully aware of any changes that have been made in the dozen years that followed.