What is an "Instructor Factory"?

[beezwax]

Guba, I think if teaching salaries weren't so abysmal, you could hope to attract more people to fill the ranks. Who wants to dedicate years of study and prep for a minimum wage job? Except for the few who consider it their "calling" it breaks down to simple financial considerations....we can only blame ourselves for the "every child left behind" net result.

 

[Teamcasa]

This thread is really revealing and possibly just a bit grating. Now don't start to bristle, because what it reveals to me is not something necessarily linked to diving, but education in general. You see, I teach in Texas and there is a bit of a teacher shortage. To alleviate that dilemma, our legislature has passed a law allowing persons to become certified as public education teachers. All they need is a degree (in just about anything), pass a short series of online "modules" or courses, and then pass a proficiency exam in the area in which they desire to teach. Presto! They are "teachers".
What's ironic to me is that every post on this board so far says that is inadequate for scuba. We desire and even demand that instructors have experience, advanced training, and good teaching skills so that students get the most from their training (as it should be). But then our society will condone and even promote the practice of "certifying" untrained people into the ranks of professional educators, and they will teach our children from kindergarten to grade 12. Amazing.
Thanks for allowing me to vent for a bit. (breath in....breath out....breath in...breath out...)
sigh. I feel better now. : ) Have a great day!

I for one, think that allowing non-credentialed teachers to teach is a great idea. I was once asked to teach a technical course at a local community college. It turned out that the course I planed and subsequently taught was the only one being offered to the public. (The course was electronic fuel injection.)

The students, mostly adults mechanics trying to get training outside of being employed by a manufacturer. They learned and prospered with their newly acquired knowledge. I was accredited based on vocational skill. I taught over well over 500 students.

As for dive instructors, you can not paint them all with the same brush. Some people have a higher aptitude for learning than others. I judge an instructor based on his/her ability to convey their experience and knowledge to me, not by their credentials or the time it took to get a certificate.

Dave

 

[GA Under Water]

Some people have a higher aptitude for learning than others.

Thank you totally Agree.

Some folks have to run for years to get that 6 minute mile, and others just turn up and run it in 5 minutes.

The only thing that is equal in this world is that we are all unique.


Hey, if you have the cash to go to an Ivey league School or (Lawyer farm) . . . Sorry Instructor farm Then by all means do so. History teachers teach History, did they ever really see, witness or have experience in what they are teaching? And there will always be a student that asks a question that the teacher doesn't know the answer to. At least once in their Career, we all admit that no one knows everything.

 

[Guba]

Now back to the thread...

It's true that no one knows everything. It's also true that history teachers (good ones) need not have experienced all of history to be able to teach it.

HOWEVER, the one thing that all good teachers have is the ability to convey their material to their students. My point about the Texas teachers? Simply proving mastery of the material does not make one a true "teacher". That comes from knowing HOW to relate the material to the business at hand and communicating it to the student. The modules and the exam only prove mastery of material. They do not instruct the individual about how to communicate it to others.
Dive instructors may go through the "mills" and get all the technical info they need. However, without the time and experience (I'm not talking about diving experience...I'm referring to the experience of relating to students and their specific problems and needs) that is acquired through the divemastering process, it's a gamble whether that new "instructor" has what it takes to truly teach. Certainly, some people have great communication skills and can teach their chosen profession extremely well. But as I just said...it can be a gamble recognizing those folks unless he/she has credentials stating that they have received not only academic training, but also training in communication. That's why education departments have extensive mentoring and student training processes. That's supposedly why dive certification agencies have divemastering components. To circumvent those elements with "drive through" certification detracts from the level of professionalism overall.

 

[WeekendDiver]

you teach a person
you learn a subject

 

[OH-JJ]

My personal feeling based on what I have observed over the years, and from listening to my Sister-in-law who is a teacher, is that there are both good teachers and bad teachers. You can have all the degrees in the world, have all the book knowledge in the world, and have all the experience in the world, but it does not matter unless you can Effectively transfer that knowledge to your students.

In fields which require more abstract thinking and reasoning, ( i.e. not being an accountant who just adds up numbers all day,) You cannot replace the lessons learned by the experiences of reasoning through a situation, and learning where you errored.
For alot of areas I think we should bring back the whole Apprenticeship program idea.
Take for example Computers. I can teach you what all the commands do, I can even teach you the theory of why you string the commands together, however Unless you actually do it enough to understand it, it is all gibberish. Same with languages. I can listen to language tapes all day long, I can goto Language classes for years, however unless you are actually speaking the language everyday, ( say living where it is spoken,) you will never truly know the language.

 

[The Dive Advisor]

Thanks for the feedback so far, but I'd like to focus in a bit more....

OK, so the "factories" are mostly "zero to hero" programs. But there are different kinds of these. There are some that do indeed have 20+ people on one IDC, but in my research I've found ones that focus on small groups whose IDCs are maybe 3-5 people with 1-to-1 instructor ratios.

Now I do concede the point the quality of the instructor depends greatly on the person's own ambitions and naturaltalent. But wouldn't the latter produce better students / instructors?

SECOND, these programs give their students lots and lots of dives, upwards of 200. Many of your replies are that they lack experience. So the question is how much experience do you need? 200 dives seems like an awful lot and those thinking it's not enough could be accused of snobbery, no?

Same with DM training. I took it from one post above that the experience with real-world situations should be in the DM phase. But how long should somoen work as a DM? Let's say in your training program you do DM for 2 months, working with real customers. Wouldn't that be sufficient?

And no one has really answered my first question head on: What is a better alternative?

Thanks!

 

[RiverRat]

What is a better alternative?[/B]

Well I've only been diving for 4 years but I'll give it a shot from my perspective as a land locked DM that "works" in the industry as a hobby, at least at this point in time.
Any time you have a money making machine/s that caters to the "gotta have it yesterday" impulse buyers, then you're going to have a problem with "factories". It's the same whether or not it's the cheap OW courses or Instructor courses. Bottom line is that if you rush people through without A: real world diving experience in varied environments and B: No real MENTORING as I see it, you'll pump out crappy Instructors with no real value to offer their students. I was just listening to a Podcast today about a cave diver that decided he would not instruct until he had 10 or more years under his belt cave diving. That says a lot. I'm not saying an Instructor needs 10 years experience, and recreational diving is certainly less demanding than cave diving, just using that as an example. I've had the advantage of working with varied instructors as a DM and I've seen many things I've liked about their training styles, and just as many things I didn't like. Without mentioning names, I think the best thing that could happen to training today would be for the agencies to emulate what these other, more technical groups are offering. Bottom line is they churn out divers. I mean people that can really DIVE right from the get go. Sure they'll still be new divers. But they'll have better buoyancy control and trim etc. right from the beginning. Now take these divers and send them off to get some experience. To become good divers. Get some experience and THEN come back and do an IDC if that's what you want to do.
I see it as a problem when you can have divers and divemasters with way more experience than instructors that are out "teaching" people how to dive. All they're doing is teaching people how to barely stay alive then they have to go learn by trial and error.

 

[MauiScubaSteve]

Every person is different and for some the factory is the better alternative. There are different size factories, a recent SB topic concerned an operation claiming 5 or less students per IDC class, yet still the oppertunity to go from non-diver to instructor in 6 months and a few hundred dives. The majority of instructors from the factories are not starting as non-divers. Most go in with enough dives to know they have a real love for diving. After that factory investment (both time and money) the new instructor can find gainful employement in the dive industry, and like someone with a teaching degree, learn the real world by doing the job. There are plenty of really good instructors who went through similar programs. The instructor canidate hopefully makes the best decisions for his or her situation. If they are both a good student and a good teacher they will become a good instructor. There are also plenty of 2000+ dive DM's that will never be good instructors.

 

[Tassie_Rohan]

these programs give their students lots and lots of dives, upwards of 200. Many of your replies are that they lack experience. So the question is how much experience do you need? 200 dives seems like an awful lot and those thinking it's not enough could be accused of snobbery, no?[/B]Thanks!

IMHO 200 shallow dives at the same site, in the same warm, good vis water, is worth less than a dozen dives across a wide spectrum of conditions (low/no vis, strong current, cold water, deep, etc, and preferably all at the same time).

I've heard of candidates at some factories going out to the end of the wharf and diving for the minimum time required and then repeating until they get the X number of dives they need.

That explains the appalling diving style of some divers produced by this system.


The alternative:

Dont get fixated on the number of dives. Just dive, a lot. Under a lot of different conditions.

At some point you will find yourself naturally leading dives and being approached for advice by inexperienced divers. At that point you're ready to teach.

Cheers,
Rohan.