Today's OW Course

[gcbryan]

(nearly) everyone works inside the constraints of the agency. They dictate what it takes to get 'qualified'. The major problem with agencies' 'view' is the length of time in which a person can become proficient with basic OW skills.

So I think it ridiculous to pin blame on an instructor for adhering to the rules.

And ridiculous to think 'customers' will know the difference in training.

The agencies have set the bar too low.

Customers don't know the difference but motivated divers will become good divers and others won't regardless of what class they ended up in.

As long as the very basics are taught (and all do this to some degree) then the motivated (interested) will become experienced divers and the others won't...regardless of the class. Six months out of OW your skill is determined by you and not by your OW training.

It's a hobby...a 4 year degree is not required.

 

[Web Monkey]

Sorry, maybe a bit off the hip there. I'm just saying that having a dive op isn't necessarily an easy life and having *wonderful* courses for a lot of ops just isn't an option. They need to make ends meet and competition is fierce.

If an instructor spent way over the odds on instruction in a lot of ops they'd get fired/chastised/replaced.

I'm sure a lot of instrcutors would LOVE to spend ages teaching their students. Econmic realities often dictate otherwise and they dictate to the minimum curriculum as per PADI. 4 days, as many students as possible.

Nobody has to teach an inadequate class. I'd quit before doing a class that turned out unprepared divers.

There are plenty of jobs that don't pay much, but also won't put some else's live in jeopardy.

Terry

 

[DCBC]

By observation! There was an LDS that had an instructor, highly regarded by our herd, who had a scheduling conflict. He discussed it with the training director at the mother shop and rescheduled without the local manager knowing anything about it. Nor did we, unfortunately.

As a result, that instructor is not longer hired to teach out of that shop. Instructors come and go. There's plenty around.

BTW, the instructor is still highly regarded and we use him outside of the LDS context. But that demonstrates how even a respected instructor is unimportant in the overall LDS scheme of things.

That only proves that one LDS treated one instructor a certain way on one occasion. It hardly can be deduced that: instructors are a dime a dozen in all locations, or eliminates the possibility that it wasn't the instructor who broke off this relationship; you have no personal knowledge.

...If you want to crank out good divers you're going to have to take one of two approaches: First, just do it anyway in the context of OW. Teach all that's required and augment it with all that's needed Second, advocate and sell additional training right after OW. Otherwise, you're (collectively, not individually) just perpetuating the situation.

But I absolutely agree that the only solution rests with the instructors. The agency won't change, the LDS doesn't want to change and the instructor is the only one who can control the outcome.

Exactly; that's why I teach the way I do. It's a shame that the instructor agencies concerned haven't stepped-up and fulfilled their moral obligations.

 

[DCBC]

Sorry, maybe a bit off the hip there. I'm just saying that having a dive op isn't necessarily an easy life and having *wonderful* courses for a lot of ops just isn't an option. They need to make ends meet and competition is fierce.

If an instructor spent way over the odds on instruction in a lot of ops they'd get fired/chastised/replaced.

I'm sure a lot of instrcutors would LOVE to spend ages teaching their students. Econmic realities often dictate otherwise and they dictate to the minimum curriculum as per PADI. 4 days, as many students as possible.

Sure, it's ****. It's also reality for *most* ops and instructors out there. That I've seen at least. I'm only AOW and I can tell you I could easily teach people much better than your average OW course. But of course I'd be doing it on my own time and I've got relatively lots of money from my 'real' job.

I've already told my story. It's the diving organizations that have lowered their standards (lead by PADI) that have enabled the shops to manipulate diver training into what it is today. The instructors have a choice to provide more on their own dime, or teach independently.

Why is it that the instructors are the ones that have to do this? Why is it that the diver certification agencies can't raise their standards to a minimum number of hours of training that would insure that all OW divers receive adequate training?

 

[DCBC]

(nearly) everyone works inside the constraints of the agency. They dictate what it takes to get 'qualified'. The major problem with agencies' 'view' is the length of time in which a person can become proficient with basic ow skills.

So i think it ridiculous to pin blame on an instructor for adhering to the rules.

And ridiculous to think 'customers' will know the difference in training.

The agencies have set the bar too low.

Absolutely!

 

[DCBC]

Well... Lets take this the the extreme just for the sake of argument. If the classed get to short and turn out suck horrible divers then the boat captains will require more certification or not recognize certification from Z or Y group. This will lead to a demise of the universal certification and the agency then will have to figure out how to get credibility back. The resorts will certify for that resort only and the LDS will certify for that shop only. This will Kill the SCUBA industry and only leave commercial dive schools.

What "universal certification?" Some organizations have already lost credibility, others haven't had a whole lot of credibility to start with... I can't help but like the part about ... "only leave commercial dive schools."

I think that the certification agency's are trying to strike a balance between what is needed and what the people will pay for and do. I think that the early training in the 60's was overkill and what we have now is underkill. but the lawyers have yet to make the scene to correct the problem in this case. A lot of divers families have money to burn on legal sharks.

Why should a certification agency move away from what is needed for money? Think about this, x is needed for safety so lets drop the standards and give them y, so we can sell more certifications, which will translate to unsafe divers for the sake of profit.

Say what you like about the training in the 60's, but it made safe divers, who were not dependent on BCs or dive computers. With the advent of technology, the standards were lowered accordingly. They've been lowered again and again... Everyone's aware that a problem exists, why do the certification agencies need to wait for a judge's ruling? Why can't they do the moral thing and correct the problem?

 

[Diver0001]

Like skydiving, people think that they do [need training] (I certainly didn't jump from an aircraft without knowing how to put-on the harness and get out of the aircraft in a safe manner). It just seems logical that someone has to show them how...

Yes, certainly. It's a matter of how much training people think they need, not that they think they can teach themselves to dive. The biggest difference between instructors who teach to minimum standards and instructors who teach to higher than minimum standards isn't really the skills that are taught, it's the level to which the skills are taught.... or in other words, how much *experience* do you give them in the class versus how much experience the student is expected to get on their own. I think most people think that if they've been taught everything that they're perfectly capable of getting out there and getting the experience without an instructor holding their hand..... or to get the experience in the safetynet of diving with a DM.... etc.

I believe the public trust the people they go to for advise. The fact that they are steered onto this path or that one will largely influence their ultimate direction. If they see one course at $200 and another at $300 they naturally look for the best deal. Hey that's great, faster and cheaper than the other LDS. Unfortunately however, they are not always made aware of the differences.

Yeah well if *we* as pro's can't get it clear then we can't expect potential customers to be clear about it. Both instructors will tell the customer that they will learn everything they need to learn to go diving. A *smart* person (or maybe most people) may actually make the connection that if one instructor is spending more time that their training may be higher quality but if the other instructor is saying it's good enough then the "i'm better than average" thinking that most people have will make a lot of people choose (at some level--possibly even consciously) for lower quality as long as they are convinced that it's *good enough*.

Naturally the instructor who offers higher quality won't find minimum quality "good enough" but the customer will look on the internet, see that 98% of courses are in the "good enough" bandwidth and simply reach the conclusion that the instructor offering the "high-octane" class is the odd one out.... People are really simple in how they work like this.

R..

 

[Kingpatzer]

People keep bringing up the idea that if there were a problem lawyers would get involved and everything would get fixed.

I'd love to know where that idea comes from.

Go take a look at how many malpractice law suits there are, and then using the logic that lawyers fix things, explain why medical errors have been rising steadily for decades. Doctors are being forced to spend less and less time with patients, and as a result aren't able to do as thorough a job as they'd like. And mistakes get made. Lawyers love suing doctors, and a lot of the cases are settled rather than going to trial as it's just easier that way. Yet the squeeze is still on, and the errors keep increasing.

Now, there aren't a lot of people dying while scuba diving, but we're not talking about merely if the training is adequate enough to stop most people from dying on their first dive. We're talking about if it is adequate enough for them to be able to enjoy the experience of diving and to be skilled enough to be a safe diver should something go wrong.

One of the things that the industry does have going for it is precisely that the average OW student is interested in going to some warm, clear, still chuck of ocean, dropping down to 40' to look at a reef and then go golf. The fact that most entry level divers are seeking to dive in near perfect conditions means that the inadequacy of the training is rarely tested.

And that most don't continue also helps.

But I have to wonder how many don't continue because they found the experience interesting but difficult and uncomfortable. How many came up from a day of diving and go "Wow, that was cool, but it was so hard to stay off the reef. Let's go golf."

 

[gcbryan]

I think that many people who dive are divers only because the entry barrier was so low. In any other sport they wouldn't be involved. So, it's not surprising to me that many don't stay with the sport.

That's not really a problem. They weren't especially motivated to be divers but it was easy to try it out, they did it, and they move on. It's expensive to continue and get all of the gear if you're really not that into it.

If that's 85 percent of divers then the dive industry probably is doing a good job with that large segment.

It's all the people in this thread and on ScubaBoard that make up the 15 percent of divers that are really into it. Those people will get the experience they need regardless of how the dive industry is organized.

Taking more classes doesn't automatically make better divers. It depends on the class and on the diver. It doesn't hurt but the assumption seems to be that to be proficient a diver just has to have a certain number of classes.

For sure, 4 open water dives is less than I would like to see but I have no real basis for that. People aren't dying in great numbers. It's just not satisfying to see an incomplete standard of training in a sport that we are interested in.

It's not a moral issue either. People are getting off base with this idea in my opinion. People not organizations carry their own moral compass including the ones who work for the training agencies. They are all moral people. It's not about morals.

It's OK if some of you feel this way as everyone is free to their opinion of course.

I don't think anyone is playing golf because they think it's too hard to stay off the reef. It's not necessarily another course that they need. They just aren't motivated particularly to take diving to another level.

For some diving, it like parasailing...something you do on vacation every now and then.

If the entry barriers were a little higher then those involved in diving would be more motivated as is the case with most other activities.

No one markets rock climbing or flying as something you can learn in a weekend and can do on vacation without knowing what you're doing because there will be someone there to protect you.

The only problem with diving and diving education really is just that too much has been promised. It's just not realistic.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Why is it that the instructors are the ones that have to do this? Why is it that the diver certification agencies can't raise their standards to a minimum number of hours of training that would insure that all OW divers receive adequate training?

NAUI's standards for the entry-level scuba diver course mandate a minimum of 14 hours for the academic part of the class and a minimum of 17 hours for practical application ... including not less than 10 in-water hours.

The logical two questions are ...

1. Are the instructors providing it? and if so ....
2. Are those minimum standards enough?

NAUI's standards manual even states that the instructors may, if they choose, intersperse additional dives between required dives, as long as they are supervised.

How many instructors do?

Why?

... Bob (Grateful Diver)