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Richard Pyle sez: > My personal beef with the whole "standards" concept is that it goes > hand-in-hand with the attitude of "Do it this way because I said so, and > it's the standard so don't argue." This stance does not help students > *UNDERSTAND* the concept, it only forces them to memorize certain numbers > and arithmetical formulae. I tend to prefer the attitude of "This is why I > do it this way, and why I don't do it another way. If you're smart, > you'll either agree, or provide me with convincing evidence that there is > a better way." In other words, what I would like to see covered in > courses is the rationale behind why certain limits (such as max PO2 of > 1.4 ata/bar) and certain fomulae (such as equivalent narcotic depth in > feet = (PO2+PN2-1)*33 ) have come to be the way they are, including > references to the sudies that shed light on the specific issues. Yes, YES, YES! But, I have a feeling that the agencies themselves don't know this stuff. This opinion is certainly substantiated by my conversations with Ed Betts of ANDI, who goes into "massive hand waving mode" whenever the tough questions are approached. Forget guys like that actually reading and keeping up with current research. > I believe training agencies should always work hard to stay at the cutting > edge of what information is available about hyperbaric physiology and > successful and unsuccessful diving practices (as evidenced by accident > analysis), and should constantly be updating their certification programs > (through dissemination of frequent periodic reports to all of their > instructors) in response to new insights. Unfortunately, the sad truth is that cert agencies spend much more time and money focusing marketing...using the ANDI example again, Betts seems more proud of his "SafeAir" trademark and yellow/green color scheme than anything actually to do with diving... > Also, I don't think agencies should feel pressured into chosing one > method or another; or one side of a controversey or another. Instead, > they should present both sides of the issue fairly. But that would slow down the teaching process, and require actual education: what a concept! > For example, take the methods by which decompression profiles are > calculated. Instead of just saying "There are these theoretical > compartments with such and such half times and...etc", I think their > courses should say "Nobody really understands what's going on [...] Now this would take real balls -- unfortunately, the agencies each posit themselves as "we know *everything* about diving". I suspect they do this because the sad truth of the world we live in is that people want to believe that there are no risks, no unanswered questions. For PADI to go out and say "We really don't know if you will get DCS" would be tantamount to commercial suicide -- the happy, shiny family of four just wants to go look at the pretty fishies, not hear that there are risks (some potentially fatal). Unfortunately, though this attitude is partially forgiveable for rec diving, it also seems to carry over to tec diving, where it is wholly unforgiveable. But tec diving today is a marketing thing, driven more by max market penetration and max market growth, than by safety, success, etc. > The fundamental flaw in my scheme is that not all people who want to do > deep mixed gas dives in demanding evironments (and not even all > instructors) are intelligent enough or disciplined enough to make the > right choices about how to do certain things. This isn't a flame, or > even a cynical reflection on society; this is cold, hard, scary fact. > Such people will die, and those deaths will ultimately bring harm to a > large sector of the people who ARE intelligently doing it. So we need to look at what we can do to prevent this. I see the following: 1) Stop the heavy, macho sales-pitch of deeper is better, etc. 2) Stop trying to endlessly grow the tec diving market (same as above, but bears repeating). 3) Weedout people from traing courses: money =/= certification. 4) Help people find the diving/risk level they are comfortable with (if you are not "cut out" for tec diving, that's OK, you can still be a good diver). 5) Actually teach, not just certify. (Maybe for tec diving, we should think more in terms of apprenticeship or intership, than certification?) 6) Promote safety, whatever it takes. -frank PS: Want to hear something *really* scarry? Betts is actually trying to build his own rebreather, and he thinks a) it is easy, and b) he knows all he needs to know to dive it, and c) knows all he needs to know to teach it. -- fhd@in*.ne* | What would this country be without this great land of ours? 1 212 559 5534 | -- Ronald Reagan 1 917 992 2248 | 1 718 746 7061 |
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