ANDI standards require a current ANDI instructor (the editorial "you" referred
to below) to be present and in control of all ANDI course activities.

The ANDI Limited and Complete SafeAir User programs (ie training levels 1 and 2)
allow you to use instructor discretion permitting direct or indirect supervision
during Part 2 in-water activities.  This has *always* been an ANDI standard.

The concepts of indirect and direct supervision and their differences were not
invented by ANDI.  Their bases are in the RSTC standards.

This discussion refers *only* to ANDI Level 1 and 2 training.  Other programs
have other requirements.  

Your responsibilities under Part 2 include, but are not limited to, supervising
gas analysis and recording, predive planning, administering an exam (it need not
be on the boat) and supervising the water experience.  The term "Part 2" is used
specifically instead of "open water" to emphasize that there is more happening
than just "going diving".

With regard only to the diving aspect of Part 2:  

You, the instructor, are required to be personally present at entry/exit point,
approve the diving activity, oversee the planning and preparation and the
equipment inspections.  You maintain overall control of the events taking place
and must be *prepared* to enter the water to aid and assist students should the
need arise.

This means you cannot leave your dive gear at home.  It also means you can dive
if you want to, or for whatever reason, feel you should.  There is no
prohibition against diving.

Someone suggested a hypothetical example of an instructor sleeping while his
students are diving:

You are not prepared to enter the water so you are not properly supervising your
activity.

But there is more at work here than the printed standard alone.  There is the
spirit and also a reasonable standard of behavior.  As an instructor, you are a
leader, a role model.  You are conducting a program whose goal is to pass on
knowledge, provide somewhat controlled conditions to experience new things, and
inspire.  Your students have the right to expect your undivided body and
attention.  There is a direct relationship between your physical and mental
condition and the quality of your teaching and the respect you cultivate in your
students.  You cannot have the flu, be hungover, or in a thousand other ways be
in unacceptable condition or unprepared to conduct your class, contingencies
included. 

We've heard this time and again - good instructor/bad agency vs. bad
instructor/good agency.

If you sleep on the job you are making a strong statement about your own
conscientiousness not about your agency affiliation.  If you feel the standard
is "ridiculous", then dive, by all means.


In this hypothetical example, are you, the instructor, demonstrating your "cut
above" character, are you going above and beyond?  Are you doing all you can to
make this the best learning experience possible for your students?  Is it OK to
sleep because you are not *required* to dive?   Of course not.  Read the plain
language of the standards.  You are doing as little as possible and then hiding
behind an incorrect analysis of the standard.

You have acknowledged you are unprepared, unwilling or in some other way unable
to dive.  You are not in position to conduct this program in the first place.

The bizarre irony of the hypothetical is to first characterize the standard as
"ridiculous" and then to justify the inability to carry out the instructor
responsibilities by invoking it.   

While asleep you are not in control of a situation or prepared to enter the
water.  It is difficult to believe that by suggesting this hypothetical example,
anyone would consider this acceptable behavior for any instructor under any
circumstances.

---------------------------------------------------------------
Stuart Masch, Chief Operating Officer
American Nitrox Divers International

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