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Putting a weak, poor, or non-swimmer into questionable water conditions makes no sense to me at all. "Why is that so difficult to comprehend?" If you think it does, I'll leave you to your "PADIland" fantacy.
If the instructor issues the cert. because the minimum general OW course requirements have been met (let's say PADI or SSI is the course), and the instructor doesn't believe the student is ready for independent buddy pair diving in the local oceanic environment, then the instructor can educate the student about that, but the choice is the student's as to what to do.
...I expect students should be certified when minimum standards are met, which should demonstrate that they are capable of diving safely somewhere (which may not be local) in the mainstream courses. If you specifically train for the local environment and not with agencies taking that approach, then of course your courses will run differently.
I just don't see this happening, not even on a small scale. It's a made up problem. Why do people keep bringing up these made up problems? Probably because there are no real problems to rant about.
...ONLY IF an instructor refused to follow standards would a "weak, poor, or non-swimmer" pass.
How many times are students asked to perform a verticle CESA during the open water training?...how can one conclude that the student has demonstrated "mastery" of the skill and performed it in a "repeatable" manner?
This is a made up problem. People who are uncomfortable in the water are simply not seeking Scuba instruction. I've never had a student ask to learn how to dive who could not swim and swim well. I can only remember hearing about one instructor who had such a student and they washed out when they had to flood their mask. I guess you could say that the certification allow monkeys to get certified. In debate this is called a misleading vividness where a small or non-existent problem is made out to be significant. Add the glib put down, "Spoken like a..." to lend an air of superiority to your words. It's nothing but Shenanigans.Spoken like a fair-weather Diver... If you ran a course in the North Atlantic (normal conditions) and the Student only achieved minimal in-water ability (non-swimmer with a mask), they would be totally unsafe to dive imo. So much for "International Standards" that are based on ideal conditions. When the conditions are "not ideal," what a Diver requires to dive safely also changes.
My OW instructor (who was president of the NACD at that time) told a story where he had one of his students who wasn't even comfortable with her face in the water. She later became a cave diver after taking it really slow due to her fear of water. Aside from this, everyone I know who wants to scuba dive has been a strong swimmer.This is a made up problem. People who are uncomfortable in the water are simply not seeking Scuba instruction. I've never had a student ask to learn how to dive who could not swim and swim well. I can only remember hearing about one instructor who had such a student and they washed out when they had to flood their mask. I guess you could say that the certification allow monkeys to get certified. In debate this is called a misleading vividness where a small or non-existent problem is made out to be significant. Add the glib put down, "Spoken like a..." to lend an air of superiority to your words. It's nothing but Shenanigans.
That being said, I am in the middle of learning adaptive scuba. I got to dive as a quadriplegic where the only thing I was able to do was to move my head. Talk about being a non-swimmer!
This is a made up problem..................... In debate this is called a misleading vividness where a small or non-existent problem is made out to be significant.
If you dive like a yo-yo during class, then you are teaching your students to dive like yo-yos. You can dance around it all you want and justify it any way that you can, but you're teaching your students that being a yo-yo is quite OK because YOU do it.
Nothing like it at all. I actually see yo-yo divers here in the Keys all the time. I also see instructors instilling this bad habit into their students among others. I am sad that you promote this kind of diving. I would have thought that with all your bravado that your standards would be a bit higher.Kinda like this?
So when the Student complains to the Agency, your going to tell them that the Student's lack of water ability prevented him from being "comfortable in the water."