Where to start technical diving

[Wibble]

But in addition to technical diving experience there's also the teaching element that should not be discounted. I'm a firm believer that anyone that aspires to be a tech instructor should spend some time in the trenches teaching recreational levels first. There is very valuable experience to be gained in managing real students that have very limited diving backgrounds on their first deep dive (30m), or on their first limited visibility dive, or in their first drift dive, etc. Learning the ropes how to work with students in non-decompression / overhead settings, managing the flow of the course, and dealing with real world student problems will only help would-be tech instructors be better prepared when they teach their first tech courses.

I wouldn't trade the experience I personally had teaching recreational levels for anything.

Not sure that recreational dive training helps particularly when the technical instructor candidate is properly qualified, i.e. they’ve done many hundreds of significant decompression and trimix dives and can answer what went wrong.

Agreed, some training experience with core skills might be helpful. However, the prospective instructor's own extensive experience is way more important and the actual teaching skills are far more easily developed than the years it took to master their technical diving skills. The "instructor training and development" process including all the mentoring and shadowing would sort that out.

This does assume that technical training agencies do their job properly.


TL;DR
Teaching is far easier to learn than the subject being taught.

 

[ginti]

Teaching is far easier to learn than the subject being taught.

Because of this belief, many people, who are good divers bud bad teachers, have instructor cards.

Teaching is as hard as the subject to learn, nothing less, nothing more.

 

[Wibble]

Because of this belief, many people, who are good divers bud bad teachers, have instructor cards.

Teaching is as hard as the subject to learn, nothing less, nothing more.

Nothing to do with agencies failing on their duty of care to monitor their instructors then? Continual monitoring and surprise audit visits?

A technical diving instructor needs to first and foremost be a subject matter expert. This takes years of practice to achieve.

The instructor candidate vetting process should weed out firstly candidates who haven't got the technical skills. Very simple: go away and come back in a year. Secondly the instructor development and training should mentor and develop the candidate's training skills; only when they've passed all of that will they then get to train "solo", and even then they should be probationers until they've run several course and have been properly monitored. This should get rid of the poor trainers.

Or am I living in a dreamworld where the agencies don't do this?

 

[ginti]

Nothing to do with agencies failing on their duty of care to monitor their instructors then? Continual monitoring and surprise audit visits?

I have never said the opposite; but this is just half of the problem.

A technical diving instructor needs to first and foremost be a subject matter expert. This takes years of practice to achieve.

I do not agree.

Very often here on the board there are discussion about "big name" instructors who are not so good instructors. There are two possibilities here:
(1) some of them do plain marketing, and are bad diver (and, therefore, bad instructors)
(2) others are big name because they are very good divers, but some of them are not good at teaching (therefore, bad instructors)

Why?

An experienced diver planning aggressive dives needs to first and foremost be a subject matter expert.

On the other hand, a technical diving instructor needs to first and foremost be BOTH a subject matter expert AND a quality teacher. Both take years of practice to achieve.

The instructor candidate vetting process should weed out firstly candidates who haven't got the technical skills. Very simple: go away and come back in a year. Secondly the instructor development and training should mentor and develop the candidate's training skills; only when they've passed all of that will they then get to train "solo", and even then they should be probationers until they've run several course and have been properly monitored. This should get rid of the poor trainers.

Or am I living in a dreamworld where the agencies don't do this?

In my opinion teaching abilities and diving skills have the same importance in an instructor candidate process. Also, in my opinion, it is extremely hard to learn how to teach complicated stuff from scratch. This is why I think it makes more sense to first teach many rec courses, gain experience, and then move to teach tech courses, as others previously suggested.

Getting a tec card without first being a rec instructor is like getting a full cave multi stage trimix card directly after an OW course. Dangerous.

Again, learning how to teach is very complicated, as much as learning how to dive. If you want to do it at a basic level (e.g. OW rec courses), it it takes a certain effort; if you want to do at an advanced level (e.g. tec courses) it requires an important effort; exactly like for diving.

 

[Wibble]

@ginti - I think we're probably closer to each other than it looks.

I've a background in IT training where the primary requirement is similar to technical diving instruction: that the trainer knows their stuff.

Weeding out unsuitable trainers takes some effort on the part of the "company" selling the training; measuring and managing the trainer's progress.

Of course there's a requirement for a prospective trainer to have the basic ability to train; it's very much nature and nurture. This is where the vetting needs to be strong and unsuitable people weeded out during the selection process.

With technical diving instruction, the trainer has a wealth of experience to draw upon. Coupled with the training 'attitude' and aptitude, plus working with a senior instructor, attending the course as a student and assisting with others, it should be straightforward to be a good instructor.


As someone said earlier; having exemplary technical diving skills way beyond the course being taught means that the instructor's not task loaded when things get busy.

 

[divezonescuba]

One hole: TDI extended range trimix != PADI tmx65. Yeah right

 

[ginti]

Of course there's a requirement for a prospective trainer to have the basic ability to train; it's very much nature and nurture. This is where the vetting needs to be strong and unsuitable people weeded out during the selection process.

That's where I disagree with you. The ability to train other people should be high always. If a subject is more complicated, it must be even higher because of a series of reasons that, if you want, I can elaborate a bit more.

And I do not believe at all that is about nature. The ability to train others can be (and should be) learnt.

With technical diving instruction, the trainer has a wealth of experience to draw upon. Coupled with the training 'attitude' and aptitude, plus working with a senior instructor, attending the course as a student and assisting with others, it should be straightforward to be a good instructor.

If that was the case, at least 100% of instructors (who have the right amount of experience***) should be good. But, among the ones who have experience, only some are good instructors. Why? Because they do not receive any training to learn how to teach. Again, experience and skills are fundamental AS MUCH AS training abilities, and they both need to be developed. If only one of the two is missing, the instructor is not that good.

***we both know that, unfortunately, this is not always the case, but this is not my point; I agree with you that experience is a must.

As someone said earlier; having exemplary technical diving skills way beyond the course being taught means that the instructor's not task loaded when things get busy.

Agree 100% here; as I said, both experience and teaching abilities must be high. On the experience side, we agree It's on the teaching ability that I can't entirely agree. In my opinion, it deserves A LOT more emphasis (and training).

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

@Wibble

What you are suggesting of filtering out bad instructors goes against the Ponzi scheme business model implemented by the scuba industry. Agencies don't make more money from higher quality but they do from higher quantity.

 

[loosenit2]

@Wibble

What you are suggesting of filtering out bad instructors goes against the Ponzi scheme business model implemented by the scuba industry. Agencies don't make more money from higher quality but they do from higher quantity.

I'm not sure this is true of instruction at the technical level. I have not seen a "race to the bottom" in terms of pricing for technical classes, prices seem pretty consistent at about 250-350 a day.

 

[DiveClimbRide]

I would rather have a better instructor than a better diver teaching me. It doesn't matter if they are God's gift to diving if they can't teach me any of it. Whereas a better instructor can train you to be a higher level than themselves without too many problems.