Should Nitrox Certification require dives....

[MHK]

I'm just wondering... Have you ever run into a student in a NITROX course (or other advanced course for that matter) that you've denied a card because of basic skills? You may have and it'd be interesting to hear the story...

Hundreds and hundreds of them.. I would say that I deny about 75% of my students a passing c-card the first time they take my class, and more often then not it is based upon lack of basic skill(s).. You'll be surprised what happens when you ask divers to do skills while remaining nuetrally bouyant, or you'll be surprised how many students can't remain nuetrally bouyant when you ask them to do nothing but stay still. Then throw in a mask R & R, or an air share and all too many students get tunnel vision and focus on only the air share, or only the mask R & R and loose 5' or 10' of bouyancy. In many cases 20' or more of bouyancy. It happens every week, in almost every class I teach.

Try loosing 10' or 20' of bouyancy while on a mix that drives the PP02's at, or near, acceptable levels? And then ask why wouldn't you want to see your student demonstrate proper bouyancy prior to issuing a c-card with your name on it? No amount of money in the world is worth it, especially what scuba instructors get paid ;-)

Regards,

 

[Don Burke]

The problem is that the "system" is broken at the lowest level. Most know it, but few admit it, especially at the corporate level. If the head of the agency were to follow my recommendations in this thread he would either need to tacitly, or overtly, admit that reliance on an OW card as a matter of proof is tantamount to an acknowledgement that the card isn't valuable. You guys know that this will never happen, so why continue compounding a problem by ignoring the obvious, and relying on that which we know is wrong?

Said another way, if we know that all too many divers passed an OW class absent the requisite skill then why not take any opportunity you can to teach them at subsequent levels?

Mike,
I have no problem with additional instruction. I do have a problem with the agency requiring dives to no stated end.

If we were talking about getting the diver in the water before the class to demonstrate skills, I would be all for it. What is happening is that the instructor from Lazy Larry's Lube Rack, Dive Shop, and Bar & Grill is not required to teach anything on those two dives, just collect the money for them and issue the card if the student survives.

Adding additional BS to compensate for legacy BS is not the way out of this hole. The BS gets deeper and neither OW or the nitrox course gets fixed.

GUE appears to have figured out a way around this problem with DIR-F. If an instructor insisted on a demonstration or the agency added instruction to the curriculum, we would have little or nothing to discuss on this issue.

 

[jonnythan]

Mike,
I have no problem with additional instruction. I do have a problem with the agency requiring dives to no stated end.

Well the issue Mike is pointing out is that they should have a stated end. He appears unwilling to even acknowledge the point that dives with no point are indeed pointless because it's so far away from what the actual argument should be it's irrelevant and not even worth arguing over. It's hard to argue with the position, but you and I are a little more practical I think

 

[latitude]

Hundreds and hundreds of them.. I would say that I deny about 75% of my students a passing c-card the first time they take my class, and more often then not it is based upon lack of basic skill(s).. You'll be surprised what happens when you ask divers to do skills while remaining nuetrally bouyant, or you'll be surprised how many students can't remain nuetrally bouyant when you ask them to do nothing but stay still. Then throw in a mask R & R, or an air share and all too many students get tunnel vision and focus on only the air share, or only the mask R & R and loose 5' or 10' of bouyancy. In many cases 20' or more of bouyancy. It happens every week, in almost every class I teach.

What is the remedial training in these cases? I'm sure since it happens to you that often, you run the gammit from: "come and do a pool dive with me" -to- "give me your C-Card you slug and take the full OW again"... Just wondering what you're options are and what you've done in the past. What sorts of reactions have you gotten...

Try loosing 10' or 20' of bouyancy while on a mix that drives the PP02's at, or near, acceptable levels? And then ask why wouldn't you want to see your student demonstrate proper bouyancy prior to issuing a c-card with your name on it? No amount of money in the world is worth it, especially what scuba instructors get paid ;-)

But by testing the students for those skills you are opening yourself up to those liability issues. If a student meets the standards (lets hypothetically say all knowledege based, no dives), you sign off the C-Card and then the diver goes and injures themself on the next dive... You could say "look I instructed up to the agencies standards, I'm not required to evaluate buoyancy, etc. I had no idea they couldn't maintain depth while doing X or Y, but they demonstrated the required skills (bookwork) to get the card".

But I realize this thread is evolving... I agree that continuing education is good. Heck, why not require something like an "annual" checkout dive for all divers with less than 100 dives, and "bi-annual" checkout for divers with less than 200, etc... or some similar system... The smart ones will seek out mentors, be that an instructor or divemaster, or Master Diver, or whatever and keep learning...

The origingal question wasn't "Is continuing education good for divers?", it was "Should NITROX certification require actual dives?". I still think my two dives were a waste of time and money as far as NITROX goes, although they were very valuable as far as honing my diving skills goes. I think we agree that continuing education is a VERY GOOD thing for a diver, I just don't think the NITROX class is the setting.

Honestly, do you think PADI or the other agencies see the 2 NITROX dives as an opportunity to provide a refresher or as a way to keep their instructors more employed (ie make a few more bucks)? If they are truly interested in making better divers with these two dives, why don't the published standards reflect that? (what are the standards for the NITROX dives anyways?)

Heck, if PADI (and the other agencies) would hop on scubaboard once in a while, the dive industry would be perfect now wouldn't it???

 

[Don Burke]

Well the issue Mike is pointing out is that they should have a stated end. He appears unwilling to even acknowledge the point that dives with no point are indeed pointless because it's so far away from what the actual argument should be it's irrelevant and not even worth arguing over. It's hard to argue with the position, but you and I are a little more practical I think

I have been reading Mike's posts here and elsewhere for some time and I give him considerably more credit than that.

I suspect he is tired of banging his head against the agency wall and has settled into this path as a temporary fix.

 

[jagfish]

Hundreds and hundreds of them.. I would say that I deny about 75% of my students a passing c-card the first time they take my class, and more often then not it is based upon lack of basic skill(s).. You'll be surprised what happens when you ask divers to do skills while remaining nuetrally bouyant, or you'll be surprised how many students can't remain nuetrally bouyant when you ask them to do nothing but stay still. Then throw in a mask R & R, or an air share and all too many students get tunnel vision and focus on only the air share, or only the mask R & R and loose 5' or 10' of bouyancy. In many cases 20' or more of bouyancy. It happens every week, in almost every class I teach.

MHK- to be fair, this response was in reference to latitude's question if you have ever denied NITROX (or other advanced) cert due to lack of skills.

I'm not intimately famiilar with your history, but your profile says dedicated GUE instructor. As I know it, GUE does not have a purely NITROX course, so I suppose you must be talking about DIR-F, Triox, Tech 1, etc.

I think it is an apples and chainsaws comparison since buoyancy is such an essential criteria for the GUE courses (in a positive way, I think) while no such requirement exists in other NITROX courses, such as PADI. Also, I feel that the GUE courses are preparing students for the ability to hold deco stops, where holding a specific depth is even more pressing...

it is natural and understandable that you would be failing students without requisite skills in the courses that you teach since these skills are quite clearly required in the standards...

 

[jonnythan]

I have been reading Mike's posts here and elsewhere for some time and I give him considerably more credit than that.

I suspect he is tired of banging his head against the agency wall and has settled into this path as a temporary fix.

Well, clearly. I meant no slight by my comments... just that he's sort of arguing a different angle than we seem to be.

 

[jonnythan]

MHK- to be fair, this response was in reference to latitude's question if you have ever denied NITROX cert due to lack of skills.

I'm not intimately famiilar with your history, but your profile says dedicated GUE instructor. As I know it, GUE does not have a purely NITROX course, so I suppose you must be talking about DIR-F, Triox, Tech 1, etc.

http://www.gue.com/info/resumes/kane.html

 

[MHK]

Well the issue Mike is pointing out is that they should have a stated end. He appears unwilling to even acknowledge the point that dives with no point are indeed pointless because it's so far away from what the actual argument should be it's irrelevant and not even worth arguing over. It's hard to argue with the position, but you and I are a little more practical I think

I'm replying to both Don and Jonnythan with this response. First to Jonnythan, perhaps you need to go back and read what I wrote, specifically:

" I divorce myself from the idea as certain agencies perpetuate, which is to simply do an escort dive. I agree, that's a waste.. "

You guys are all prescribing solutions to problems that shouldn't exsist in the first place. The answer isn't to say that given the current standard, this or that is unnecessary. The way to approach this issue is to look outside the box and start from the premise does what currently exsist makes sense? Wouldn't a more constructive approach be to start with, "Why isn't this or that part of the current curriculm?" If you answer no to the initial question, then don't bother working within the confines of that limited paradigm. Consider that the overall structure needs to be changed and think of how to do it.. In that case it means doing dives that have an objective, it means practising skills directly related to what could possibly happen given what you are going to do, and yes that means demonstrating to the satisfaction of the instructor that you have basic bouyancy skills. When I teach, I presume the student has no skill and I start from there. I don't presume that since someone else signed him off that he has skill. I've been disappointed too many times to fall for that trick again.

The way to change the industry isn't to put a band aid here and there, it's to take a look at it and almost dismantle it because it's in that bad of shape.. You can't change or fix something if the proposed solution to every problem is "currently" this or that requires it. That in-and-of-itself, is usually the cause, so to fix it you have to start from scratch and be willing to do things differently. I read with such disappointment this thread. It's sad to read because it's such a defeatist attitude that divers have. All too many are willing to accept the status of the industry, when the only way change will happen is of divers stand up to the agencies and tell them that while they're linning their pockets $30 at a clip, the status of the industry is a mess.. This is seriously the only industry that I can think of where the people that are paying for something are insisting on less, not more.. It's absolutely incredible to me..

Regards,

 

[jonnythan]

I'm replying to both Don and Jonnythan with this response. First to Jonnythan, perhaps you need to go back and read what I wrote, specifically:

" I divorce myself from the idea as certain agencies perpetuate, which is to simply do an escort dive. I agree, that's a waste.. "

You're right, I was putting words in your mouth and missed this line. Apologies.