Tech and/or cross-agency training before going Pro?

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Is_907

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Location
Fort Worth, TX
# of dives
100 - 199
Looking for some opinions and I expect they will be diverse... and that this probably isn't a "right or wrong" type of discussion but something with varying degrees.

I'm thinking of going Pro. I'd like to teach. Right now all my training is from one agency (SSI), although my instructor has done a great job of incorporating his experience from other agencies and from his extensive experience into my courses. I have also done dives with buddies from many other backgrounds so have learned a good bit.

However, I think I'd benefit from some "cross-training" and am considering GUE Fundamentals as one part of that.

So the question for the community is how important do you think it is for an instructor to have received training from multiple organizations even though they'll teach to the standard of one?
Do you think recreational instructors should have taken at least introductory technical training?
 
If you're "thinking of going pro", GUE Fundamentals should be a refreshing eye-opener.
 
If you're "thinking of going pro", GUE Fundamentals should be a refreshing eye-opener.
Unless you had a lot better OW instructors than I had, the GUE instructor will knock your socks off. It was like she was suspended on wires, and I was certainly not. You have a bunch of people doing a drill and the instructor was always pretty much exactly where she could clearly observe student mistakes and intervene to stop things if they started to drift into being unsafe without being in the way or often even in your field of view.
 
As mentioned, I've seen a huge change for the better from many instructors that took a GUE or UTD course.
 
So pretty much unanimous (as I expected) that people should take Fundamentals before doing any Pro level certs... I figured. :wink:

What about technical and freediving training? Or at least some experience?
I'm familiar with the adage of "do instructor training that leads to the kind of instruction you're going to do" but it seems like a knowledge of decompression, multi-gas diving and of hypoxic diving would be beneficial even to the most generic of PADI instructors, no?
 
ok, this was a long post, but I felt it was too long.

OK, here's the deal.
If you want to be a successful instructor, and I mean a real one, you need to take at least two college courses. One in educational psychology, the other in science education. No agency actually teaches you how to teach and any that claim they do are lying. They teach you how to regurgitate their material and that's why the online learning stuff is being pushed so hard because they finally got a clue that probably better than 95% of their instructors don't know how to teach, only regurgitate. If you are regurgitating, you may as well let the computer do it.
Take those two courses and learn how to teach. They are infinitely more important than any dive courses you can take from any agency or any instructor.

Any technical level material that you know is beneficial, but if you don't know how to digest it into a level that the students will understand and learn how to explain the concepts, then they won't really know what you're telling them. Memorization is the lowest level of learning and that is really all that the agencies teach, including at the technical level. Reason for that is that the ITC's are nowhere near long enough to actually teach instructors how to teach, and the courses are nowhere near long enough for the students to digest all the material to understand the concepts. Anyone who begs to differ with that is more than welcome to prove me wrong. This is why agencies like GUE and others encourage mentorship because that's the only way you really get to fully understand what the courses taught you.
 
the more training/education you have, the better instructor you will be. I currently have pro status at 3 different agencies (soon to be 4). It gives you a different set of tools.

and train beyond the level you will teach. going with some tech classes will make you a better divers. more knowledge about deco procedures, gas theory, etc will give better value to future students even if you do not teach tech.
 
ok, this was a long post, but I felt it was too long.

OK, here's the deal.
If you want to be a successful instructor, and I mean a real one, you need to take at least two college courses. One in educational psychology, the other in science education. No agency actually teaches you how to teach and any that claim they do are lying.

Yes, this ! I'm of the thought, that the most important "skill" in being a great instructor is "bedside manner". As a student, I could care less about your mastery of frog kicks, heli's and buoyancy. YOU (the instructor) better have some substance behind you. You need to be humble, inspire and know how to actually teach.
 
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