the joys of teaching and learning scuba

[IndigoBlue]

I taught 2 new student divers over the past month, who now have tickets to their honeymoon diving destination in Mexico. We spent 4 evenings in class together (6pm to 10pm), 4 evenings at the pool (630pm to 830pm), and 2 weekends at the ocean. By the last day at the ocean, they had become a pretty good buddy pair of divers.

It reinforced for me the notion that small classes or private classes are the best way to learn scuba, rather than huge classes of 10 to 14 students per instructor.

It also reminded me that no matter how small the class, you still need a good teaching assistant with you. There were some things that the female student just did not pick up on, no matter how hard I tried, without the assistance of my female teaching assistant. My teaching assistant is working towards her own D/M certification, and so it was a great experience for her to work with students as well.

Stress related to my regular day job totally evaporated away while we were all together learning about scuba diving. They key for the students was practice practice practice. The key for myself and my assistant was patience patience patience. We continually focused on things that went right, and did not get bogged down with things that took a little longer to learn.

Scuba diving is truly a pure delight, whether you teach or you learn, whether you lead dives or you follow a dive leader. I wonder whether these thoughts are equally shared by the other instructors here as well? I also wonder what recollections the divers here have of their own past instructors?

 

[Ron Brandt]

Yes I feel the same way.

On the subject of past instructors , well,some wern't that good and by the standards I was taught by 23 years ago or so I am lucky to be alive.

One instructor was a young kid who had no idea about adult education.

I was originally cerified, NAUI,ACUC and PADI.

I had to go with PADI as an instructor as there is not much demand up here for the other agencies. ACUC has a small following and is not out of the picture.

My CD was a real gem,I think highly of him and is now at PADI hq.

Ron

 

[TCooperWFI]

I'm not an instructor, but did my OW cert in a small class setting (about 7 years ago).
It was very non-threatening and the interaction was on a much more personal level.
Teaching Taekwondo for several years, I have experienced the same thing. Whenever possible, small group is the way to go.

 

[RiverRat]

Scuba diving is truly a pure delight, whether you teach or you learn, whether you lead dives or you follow a dive leader. I wonder whether these thoughts are equally shared by the other instructors here as well? I also wonder what recollections the divers here have of their own past instructors?

IndigoBlue,
You set a good example. Sounds like you really enjoy teaching and that's most important. I just got certified OW, AOW and Nitrox over the past summer and had what I thought was a very good instructor. She and her husband teach basically because they LOVE to dive! They have full time jobs but they're out there many weekends, late weeknights for pool dives, lead dive trips etc. God Bless 'em! Anyway, their passion for the sport really motivated me to learn as much as possible and to just get out and dive, dive, dive! and learn, learn , learn!