theatis
Contributor
I wanted to make some comments about the inadequacy of diving training material after having recently been Nitrox certified. In fact, what spurred me on to start this thread was reading the thread on 'tables vs. computers'. Let me say that my statements are in no way intended as a response to any particular person or post in that thread. Also, my statements shouldn't be construed as thinly veiled attacks against any particular agency; I was PADI-certified and I don't regret having done so.
One of the common themes that I ran into while reading the aforementioned thread was the idea of adapting the training side of diving to the eventual usage by the trainees (and, of course, I'm paraphrasing/condensing here). So, one justification provided for under-emphasizing the mathematical and generally theoretical foundations of diving is that a considerable portion of the people who get certified are simply not interested and will never employ and remember those principles beyond the classroom.
I'm not trying to start that debate anew, just to approach the subject from a different angle. Consider my statements as the viewpoint of the person who approaches the subject from the exact opposite direction of the above-mentioned stereotype, i.e. the student who wants to learn as much as possible during training rather than flush his brain soon after the class is over.
Coming from that perspective, the training material that i was exposed to (NAUI OW, PADI OW, AOW and Nitrox) are sorely lacking in providing in-depth knowledge to students who are willing to go beyond the basics. There is no clearly articulated justification for this. Nitrox was the one that pushed me over the edge; here is a 'specialty' subject where the manual is as simplistic as can be. Clearly, the authors of this manuscript went to great pains to do what we generally refer to as 'dumbing-down'.
Let me give a brief example from the most glaring section in the manual entitled "Simple Calculator Stuff: Using Formulas". One paragraph states that using the formulas is simply a matter of plugging in variables. That is of course true of most formulas! However, as an academic (and an educator at a major US university) I cannot imagine any college-level course where the instruction is "learn to plug in formulas, never mind what they mean"! Why exactly is EAD=((1-02%)x(D+33)/79)-33? Don't others want to know how we arrive to that formula, how the variables interact, the theoretical premises behind them? Aren't there publications in peer-reviewed journals where these concepts are adequately explained, and if so, why aren't they cited even solely for reference's sake?
Maybe this truly has to do with PADI's manuals, in which case I am actually agency-bashing without knowing it. But I suspect that the phenomenon is more widespread than that. In any case, I will finish my diatribe by asking for some suggestions in further reading to actually fill those gaps. Also, I'd like to point out that I learned more about Nitrox here on Scubaboard than I did from reading the manual!
One of the common themes that I ran into while reading the aforementioned thread was the idea of adapting the training side of diving to the eventual usage by the trainees (and, of course, I'm paraphrasing/condensing here). So, one justification provided for under-emphasizing the mathematical and generally theoretical foundations of diving is that a considerable portion of the people who get certified are simply not interested and will never employ and remember those principles beyond the classroom.
I'm not trying to start that debate anew, just to approach the subject from a different angle. Consider my statements as the viewpoint of the person who approaches the subject from the exact opposite direction of the above-mentioned stereotype, i.e. the student who wants to learn as much as possible during training rather than flush his brain soon after the class is over.
Coming from that perspective, the training material that i was exposed to (NAUI OW, PADI OW, AOW and Nitrox) are sorely lacking in providing in-depth knowledge to students who are willing to go beyond the basics. There is no clearly articulated justification for this. Nitrox was the one that pushed me over the edge; here is a 'specialty' subject where the manual is as simplistic as can be. Clearly, the authors of this manuscript went to great pains to do what we generally refer to as 'dumbing-down'.
Let me give a brief example from the most glaring section in the manual entitled "Simple Calculator Stuff: Using Formulas". One paragraph states that using the formulas is simply a matter of plugging in variables. That is of course true of most formulas! However, as an academic (and an educator at a major US university) I cannot imagine any college-level course where the instruction is "learn to plug in formulas, never mind what they mean"! Why exactly is EAD=((1-02%)x(D+33)/79)-33? Don't others want to know how we arrive to that formula, how the variables interact, the theoretical premises behind them? Aren't there publications in peer-reviewed journals where these concepts are adequately explained, and if so, why aren't they cited even solely for reference's sake?
Maybe this truly has to do with PADI's manuals, in which case I am actually agency-bashing without knowing it. But I suspect that the phenomenon is more widespread than that. In any case, I will finish my diatribe by asking for some suggestions in further reading to actually fill those gaps. Also, I'd like to point out that I learned more about Nitrox here on Scubaboard than I did from reading the manual!
