Should Tech instructors have to teach Rec?

[ucfdiver]

Thought this would be an interesting debate to kick the week off!

Do you feel that tech diving instructors should be required to teach recreational diving to become a tech diving instructor, and do you feel that they should have to continue teaching recreational courses after they start teaching tech?

OR do you think that the instruction is so different in tech diving that it really doesn't matter?

I'd like to hear from students and instructors alike.

 

[Blackwood]

I see no reason that anyone should be forced to teach anything.

In my personal experience, the instructors who are choosiest about what and whom they teach tend to be the best. If that means that a 'tech' instructor refuses certain clientele or refuses to teach 'rec' classes, so be it.

 

[Meng_Tze]

I have been asked to be come a tech instructor, but shied away because I would have to go through rec teaching certs. AFAIK in order to be come a tech inst. you have to be rec Inst first.?

 

[rjack321]

I don't see how someone could get good enough at teaching (in general) without 1st doing a bunch of OW students addressing their basic issues. Because some tech students will show up with those same issues (despite being certified) and you will need to manage those problems.

 

[Blackwood]

FWIW, I misread the OP. I saw "do you feel that they should have to continue teaching recreational courses after they start teaching tech" and thought that was the entire question. To that, I answer "no" with no equivocation.

And I don't believe that one necessarily needs to have taught 'rec' in order to be qualified to teach 'tech' but my answer is less emphatic.

I don't see how someone could get good enough at teaching (in general) without 1st doing a bunch of OW students addressing their basic issues. Because some tech students will show up with those same issues (despite being certified) and you will need to manage those problems.

No more than a college professor won't be prepared to manage problems with students because he didn't start off in kindergarten and work his way up, I suspect some people are capable of going straight to teaching techreational diving.

Some people are natural teachers, subject matter independent. As to basic issues, I'd have no objections to an observation dive followed by "take your team, go work on x, y and z, and come back."

 

[ucfdiver]

I don't see how someone could get good enough at teaching (in general) without 1st doing a bunch of OW students addressing their basic issues. Because some tech students will show up with those same issues (despite being certified) and you will need to manage those problems.

rjack, just to expand here a little, what about if the instructor taught a course like intro to tech or fundies instead of recreational courses, would that be OK for you, or do you feel they need to start at BOW?

 

[Divin'Papaw]

I can see the logic behind requiring a tech instructor to first be a rec instructor. However, once they move onto tech instruction I see no reason to require that they continue to also teach recreational courses.

 

[NorthWoodsDiver]

As a twist, I feel that recreational instructors should have a certain level of technical experience. Recreational dive instructors for my personal experience are not the brightest bulbs and certainly are very ignorant about most everything tech related. of course I only know a handfull of rec only instructors.

if more rec instructors had some tech background there would be far less stab jackets floating around thats for sure.

 

[Peter Guy]

I think "tech" instructors should teach OW classes -- if only to "keep them humble." While I agree they shouldn't be "required" to teach such -- I really think they should teach them. I believe all teachers should (periodically) go back to basics in teaching whatever it is they teach. (And no, that doesn't mean that a string theory prof should be teaching 1st grade -- but she should be teaching Math 101 sometimes.)

 

[pir8]

In teaching Scuba, you need the building blocks. But after you are there you don't need to keep teaching something you don't want to.