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Just my $0.02 worth on this one - 

I'm not an instructor for any cert agency, but I've worked for a few over
the years and watched several folks get their instructor ratings. I've also
observed several cases of 'unofficial' training, both good and bad. From
this I've formed the opinion that (1) having an agency is generally better
than not having one especially at the intro level, (2) instructor quality
varies widely even within a group of instructors from the same agency, and
(3) the main problem is inexperienced divers going into situations that are
beyond their abilities because they don't know better, are being pushed by
someone else, or are pushing themselves to get some kind of macho bragging
rights.

I'd defend the existance of certification agencies with a couple of
qualifications. The cert's set a minimum (often way too low) standard for
instructor and student performance that couldn't be implemented in any
other way that I know. Looking back to the days before PADI-type training
existed, instruction varied between pseudo-military hell training which
made diving inaccesable to all but a few hardasses with a high tolerance
for drowning and sloppy feather-weight instruction of the 'breathe out of
this end and come up before the air runs out' type. Today's agencies teach
basic skills and give the students simple dive tables that are needed for
similarly simple dives. In this sense, they do their jobs - train most of
the people to do the simple, no-deco, no wreck, no overhead, etc., dives
that most resort divers want. They're not designed to teach 'tech'
material, and shouldn't be held to the higher standard needed to teach
these relatively advanced topics. The certs' also allow for a bit of shared
learning since they gather the experience of thousands of instructors over
years of training in designing their courses. All that good stuff being
said, 50 or 100 dives for an instructor is total bullshit. A minimum of
200-300 dives *in the environmnet you would be teaching in* is needed, IMHO. 

I've divemastered for a couple of local shops from time to time, and found
huge differences in instructor quality even within people teaching under
the aegis of the same agency. This is a real problem since newbie divers
don't have the experience to judge who is good or bad - they often react to
class schedule and price, and the less principled instuctors know this.
They minimize the number of training sessions and cut costs wherever they
can without violating their agencies' minimum standards (another plug for
the existance of standards of some sort). Bad instructors will also tend to
push their students by offering courses for 'Advanced' or 'Rescue'
certifications that are be bought more than earned. This results in
students who can be overconfident because they have a piece of plastic that
says they are of advanced ability when they have 5-10 OW dives, most of
which were training dives. Good instructors (few and far between) encourage
their new students to start slow and gradually ramp up the dificulty of
their dives. The best will even refuse 'advanced' training until a minimum
number of dives have been done. Why this isn't required by the agencies, I
don't know.

Finally, student attitudes are the most important factor controlling the
ultimate saftey of the student after training. In class we can babysit and
hold hands, but once the c-card has been issued it's up to the student to
stay within their ability range while diving. Problems here include dive
tour groups who take new divers into difficult situations, instructors who
push their students into advanced classes to keep their rosters full, or
new divers who try to 'catch-up' to their more experienced
friends/role-models by diving deeper or longer than they were trained for.
While I don't know a perfect fix for this situation, including a discussion
of these problems in the basic training manuals might raise awareness of
these situations a bit. Also, if experienced divers make a point of not
using their status to impress and intimidate, but rather to help educate
new divers as to how they can best progress in their training, the standard
of 'macho' dives can be changed from 'I dove to 220 FSW on air and lived,
worship me' to 'I did a dive, and did it well enough to be proud of.' 

To recap: dive agencies, while not perfect, do help regulate students and
instructors to prevent the worst excesses of each. In the end, it's up to
the students to be safe and continue to learn, and the actions of the cert
agencies and attitudes of experienced divers have a big influence over
whether or not this happens.

Wow, that was a long one - a bit of pent-up posting on my part after
lurking on this list for so long.

The soap box is now open-
Eric


 

>In a message dated 3/13/00 8:33:46 PM SA Western Standard Time, 
>Don.Mcinnis@in*.co* writes:
>
>> The best case in point for this is the PADI instructor requirements. You
>>  need a whole 100 dives of experience and an IDC (which is a joke at best)
>>  and you are "qualified" to turn out a bunch of weekend warriors. At 100
>>  dives most are still trying to grasp the concept that the bubbles travel 
>up,
>>  so that's where the surface is. This is the mentality that is at the heart
>>  of the problem. Until all agencies are non-profit organizations, and
>>  therefore mass producing divers is not tied to the bottom line of the
>>  agency, it will be BUSINESS AS USUAL. And the deaths will continue to
grow.
>>  
>>   Don
>That sounds good but NAUI is a non-profit agency and they only require 50 
>dives to become an instructor. It doesnt really matter if the agency is 
>non-profit or not, the dive-shops and instructors are going to be for profit 
>and BUSINESS AS USUAL. Maybe a club system where experienced members teach 
>the beginners and less experienced would be a better answer than expecting 
>the profit status of the agency to make a difference.
>
>    Stacy 
>--
>Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@aquanaut.com'.
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>
============================
Eric Stiers
ewstiers@st*.wi*.ed*	     			           

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