I guess there is one fundamental question you have to ask: are you paying for certification, or for the teacher's time? In technical training, I think it is pretty well known that you are paying for time, not certification.
I guess the second question is, why isn't SCUBA training a little more like academic training? There should be lots of quizzes or tests throughout the course, and people who do poorly should be stopped at that level and helped. The instructor should advertise additional instruction at a reasonable rate. Additionally, shops should heavily advertise the internet and work to set up local resources such as a dive club to help people get advice and learn from other divers.
Unfortunately, most shops seem to shy away from giving divers more information, because then their own shortcomings become obvious. They do have a point, divers on the internet can be ruthless, and sometimes misinformed. There is a lot of bad information out there. And, any little mistake on the part of the shop can be picked apart and people will blacklist the shop for forever...as we see here. We've got one person's feedback on a shop and we are ready to boycott them! What we really need is for dive shops to embrace the internet and information age, and for the internet to embrace dive shops, with their minor foibles and different ways of doing business. We have to learn how to be a little kinder and gentler, and shops have to learn to respond to criticism.
I still think it's ridiculous that an entire class failed, and if he expects you to pay to take the entire class over, I would take it again with a different shop and dispute the charge with your credit card company and report the issue to Groupon. If he really didn't teach anyone enough to pass the class, then it does seem like he was trying to get more money from you all. That doesn't mean Groupon is bad! And, it doesn't mean you pay for certification. But, if true, it does seem like a little bit of an unethical business practice. Or, it might be we have half of the story and that the instructor was better than it seemed and the entire class didn't pay any attention...it's really hard to know without hearing the entire story. We aren't judges, we are just people on a forum, playing monday-morning-divemaster... Talk to the other people in your class, and make a decision, hopefully the information on this forum will help you all make an informed decision about the quality of instruction and what to do going forwards.
I guess the second question is, why isn't SCUBA training a little more like academic training? There should be lots of quizzes or tests throughout the course, and people who do poorly should be stopped at that level and helped. The instructor should advertise additional instruction at a reasonable rate. Additionally, shops should heavily advertise the internet and work to set up local resources such as a dive club to help people get advice and learn from other divers.
Unfortunately, most shops seem to shy away from giving divers more information, because then their own shortcomings become obvious. They do have a point, divers on the internet can be ruthless, and sometimes misinformed. There is a lot of bad information out there. And, any little mistake on the part of the shop can be picked apart and people will blacklist the shop for forever...as we see here. We've got one person's feedback on a shop and we are ready to boycott them! What we really need is for dive shops to embrace the internet and information age, and for the internet to embrace dive shops, with their minor foibles and different ways of doing business. We have to learn how to be a little kinder and gentler, and shops have to learn to respond to criticism.
I still think it's ridiculous that an entire class failed, and if he expects you to pay to take the entire class over, I would take it again with a different shop and dispute the charge with your credit card company and report the issue to Groupon. If he really didn't teach anyone enough to pass the class, then it does seem like he was trying to get more money from you all. That doesn't mean Groupon is bad! And, it doesn't mean you pay for certification. But, if true, it does seem like a little bit of an unethical business practice. Or, it might be we have half of the story and that the instructor was better than it seemed and the entire class didn't pay any attention...it's really hard to know without hearing the entire story. We aren't judges, we are just people on a forum, playing monday-morning-divemaster... Talk to the other people in your class, and make a decision, hopefully the information on this forum will help you all make an informed decision about the quality of instruction and what to do going forwards.