Teaching quality AND quantity

[wetb4igetinthewater]

Some folks may be interested in this: The Diamond Reef System and Challenge Course (BTSI)

 

[MichaelMc]

In an IE, candidates can still conduct those 2 skills on the knees, but they won't get a 5.

Edit: Skills are mask removal & clear + reg recovery.

A tiny step. Saying that an instructor need not be able to easily and cleanly do those skills neutral buoyant boggles the mind. If the change is a clear signal that "Look, this is all coming, get your **** together now.", then it's a good step. If it isn't, .

Edit: Some of the remaining skills are:
9 Air depletion exercise and alternate air source use (stationary)
10 Alternate air source-assisted ascent
11 Free-flowing regulator breathing
14 Controlled Emergency Swimming Ascent
17 Remove and replace weight system underwater
18 Remove and replace scuba unit underwater

Site with some of the skills, plus a neutral buoyant video version.
PADI Skill Circuit or Skill Workshop - Divemaster and IDC Skill Circuit
Watching some of those demoed started or completely on the knees is wild.

No mask swim, holding the bottom... is that legal? I could see it as an accommodation for some divers or circumstances. But not passing the IE by just doing that version.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

A tiny step. Saying that an instructor need not be able to easily and cleanly do those skills (and others) neutral buoyant boggles the mind. If it is a clear signal that "Look this is all coming, get your **** together now.", then it's a good step. If it isn't, .

I'd say my 3 month old daughter takes bigger steps than this. Let us not forget that John, Peter, and others published that article in Q2 of 2011. We are now in Q1 of 2020. Almost 9 years ago. And this is how far PADI has moved since then?

RAID seems to be growing, and I wish them continued success for their objective performance requirements. SNSI also is updating their standards with objective performance requirements (not a small task). Pete informed me that NASE is already there (I'm just not familiar with NASE. No fault of theirs, entirely my own). I hope all 3 do very well.

I do understand that in terms of numbers, people who want to check off a box, or just once a year or two do a bit of diving are not concerned about having decent buoyancy. If their dive is 25 minutes or 45 minutes, they may not care. I haven't done any sort of market analysis, but I wonder what is the return on different types of divers (An Evaluation of the Modern Scuba Diving Training Industry %). Is the pursuit of the lowest level of the pyramid (which has the greatest number) dragging the industry down with it?

I don't think this is going too OT, but as dive pros, we have to decide what is our targets, as there is no one size fits all. I think there is opportunity lost from poorly trained divers, as they don't continue. I only have empirical evidence of my own teaching, where few of my early students (when I taught on the knees) are still diving, while most whom I taught NB/trim are still diving.

Ultimately, this is a business. And we must be able to make a sufficient return on our time and investment. Or do something else. I do believe that in raising the requirements for instructors and standards for OW would result in fewer divers. No question about it. But, it would also result in a higher retention rate of OW divers that would make the industry more stable, and possibly grow slowly instead of be stagnant.

 

[MichaelMc]

RAID seems to be growing, and I wish them continued success for their objective performance requirements. SNSI also is updating their standards with objective performance requirements (not a small task). Pete informed me that NASE is already there (I'm just not familiar with NASE. No fault of theirs, entirely my own). I hope all 3 do very well.

Good news that more are doing this well.

 

[Bubble Junky]

No mask swim, holding the bottom... is that legal? I could see it as an accommodation for some divers or circumstances. But not passing the IE by just doing that version.

PADI recommend it as a buddy skill, with the buddy guiding the diver without the mask - Teaching Tips: No-Mask Swim…

 

[Bob DBF]

The illustrious @boulderjohn enlightened me with regards to padi's standards and practices, and the things you've mentioned don't sound like what I've been told.

If we look at the Open Water Diver guidelines from the WRSTC (attached).

Hey guys, you are using my lines, are ya trying to put me out of business?

In prior threads I’d quote WRSTC and go around with @boulderjohn about standards, then and now. I learned a few things from the exchange.

The standards are the same, and it’s a matter of whether the instructor wants to follow them and produce a good diver or cut corners and produce a poor diver. Don’t blame the standards, PADI, or the dive shop, the instructor trains the diver and it’s up to him to do it right.

 

[ScubaWithTurk]

Hey guys, you are using my lines, are ya trying to put me out of business?

In prior threads I’d quote WRSTC and go around with @boulderjohn about standards, then and now. I learned a few things from the exchange.

The standards are the same, and it’s a matter of whether the instructor wants to follow them and produce a good diver or cut corners and produce a poor diver. Don’t blame the standards, PADI, or the dive shop, the instructor trains the diver and it’s up to him to do it right.

While I agree with most of this post, I do not agree with the statement that you can't blame the dive shop as the shop itself is often times the one telling the instructor "you have to finish this course in two days". or " just put them on their knees and stop wasting time trying to get them neutral". Can the instructor say that the divers need more time and they want to create good divers right out of the gate? Sure they can but do not forget, there is a line of young instructors out there who do not care about that and will take your job for even less money (if that is even possible) and will do as the center or shop says.

Are some instructors out there at fault? Absolutely they are but please do not lose sight of the entire picture when it comes to dive training and the pressures related to such.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

Hey guys, you are using my lines, are ya trying to put me out of business?

In prior threads I’d quote WRSTC and go around with @boulderjohn about standards, then and now. I learned a few things from the exchange.

The standards are the same, and it’s a matter of whether the instructor wants to follow them and produce a good diver or cut corners and produce a poor diver. Don’t blame the standards, PADI, or the dive shop, the instructor trains the diver and it’s up to him to do it right.

I do see some fundamental differences between the standards of 3 agencies for which I've taught at some point in time (PADI, SSI, SDI). I will agree that most agencies allow instructors to teach at the lowest common denominator. I can't speak for the 3 WRSTC members that have objective standards (I'd like to read the standards of them: NASE, RAID, and SNSI) where skills must be performed neutrally buoyant (I would hope trim as well). There are differences in framework, but that's another matter.

Surely a simple requirement of performing skills and maintaining a depth window is a significant difference in their respective implementation of the WRSTC guidelines, wouldn't you agree?

Nothing stops a PADI/SSI/SDI instructor from teaching neutrally buoyant and trim. I started teaching that way while I was still teaching for PADI. Since I left, I have one more "trick" at my disposal (doing skin diving skills first in order to ease the transition to scuba and get students comfortable underwater, and if necessary, doing surface skills, or just swimming around at the surface in scuba). I don't take my students underwater until they are comfortable and enthused to go.

It is funny, I had a PADI CD contact me on FB and he told me that skin diving skills are a dive flexible and can be done before anything else. But then I showed him in the 2017 standards (my last active year) where they can be performed in CW2 and later, but not CW1. I've learned in my professional career to always refer to documentation/standards/etc..

If dive shops are not paying attention to what their instructors are doing, I don't know what to say. They ultimately have the say in how instructors teach.

 

[Bob DBF]

"you have to finish this course in two days". or "

“I was looking for a job when I found this one” was my answer for being told to deliberately screw over a customer. And the customer wouldn’t be in a position to die, and it was actually a paying job.

Of course individual ethics may vary.

 

[Bob DBF]

If dive shops are not paying attention to what their instructors are doing, I don't know what to say. They ultimately have the say in how instructors teach.

And if the shop says two days for OW, then the instructor has to do it. Why bother with agencies and standards?