To Private Class or Not to Private Class? Is that a question?

[sheeper]

@sheeper
I am not sure if you are being facetious about "Loving" to teach family classes.

no...i'm serious. seeing how scuba becomes a family togetherness thing is great. watching a family explore the wonders of scuba is an amazing feeling for me as an instructor.
when i do a family foursome i keep the parents buddied with each other and the siblings buddied up. Family groups require a different approach that not every instructor can deal with.
i had a recent father/son class that took a bunch of extra time just due to the kid being a kid and dad having expectations that were a tad too high. Worked out perfect in the end....they've been diving on our boats and doing great. 2 new avid divers and a father sharing a lifelong experience with his son!

 

[TMHeimer]

Admit I haven't read all posts. As a former Band Teacher, who as a youngster took private lessons, I can say that it was the private lessons that made me an incredible clarinet player...... I would think this would apply to any form of education including diving. With diving, I can say that unless as stated money is a factor, and unless you anticipate having serious problems taking a group OW course, it may not be a huge factor. You pick up a ton of things from others and by just discovering them yourself in your first few-100, whatever?-- dives anyway.

 

[Littlerayray]

Admit I haven't read all posts. As a former Band Teacher, who as a youngster took private lessons, I can say that it was the private lessons that made me an incredible clarinet player...... I would think this would apply to any form of education including diving. With diving, I can say that unless as stated money is a factor, and unless you anticipate having serious problems taking a group OW course, it may not be a huge factor. You pick up a ton of things from others and by just discovering them yourself in your first few-100, whatever?-- dives anyway.

The problem with your train of thought is that wit scuba it is good to dive with other students cuz as stated previously you can become dependent on the instructor where as with diving with other students you learn to be more independent
I will admit private classes do have their benefits but so do group classes

 

[OrangeCountyScuba]

no...i'm serious. seeing how scuba becomes a family togetherness thing is great. watching a family explore the wonders of scuba is an amazing feeling for me as an instructor.
when i do a family foursome i keep the parents buddied with each other and the siblings buddied up. Family groups require a different approach that not every instructor can deal with.
i had a recent father/son class that took a bunch of extra time just due to the kid being a kid and dad having expectations that were a tad too high. Worked out perfect in the end....they've been diving on our boats and doing great. 2 new avid divers and a father sharing a lifelong experience with his son!

Ok, just so you know when I asked it was not intended to belittle you or make it sound like your view point was stupid. Just purely wanted to know. I completely agree with you that if it is possible to have the family train together then they should. I should have been more specific in my comment earlier to the effect of, if family can collaborate in a constructive way they should train together but if they start to nit pick each other it is good to separate them. Obviously this is on a case by case basis. No matter the case when students start to act as a cohesive and fluid team, there is nothing more satisfying.

Admit I haven't read all posts. As a former Band Teacher, who as a youngster took private lessons, I can say that it was the private lessons that made me an incredible clarinet player...... I would think this would apply to any form of education including diving. With diving, I can say that unless as stated money is a factor, and unless you anticipate having serious problems taking a group OW course, it may not be a huge factor. You pick up a ton of things from others and by just discovering them yourself in your first few-100, whatever?-- dives anyway.

To elaborate more on what @Littlerayray said. Do you agree that scuba is a "team" sport? If so then do you think that it is possible or lets say reasonable that you are going to dive with the same buddy every time you go for a dive? Honestly, you are never only going to dive with the same person for the rest of your life, if you do thats kinda not fun right? The purpose of having team building skills in OW and beyond is that you need to be adaptable to others diving style or level of experience. Now whether or not you choose to continue diving with that person is completely up to you. However, if you at least get a taste for being the leader and being the follower in your initial class, with the other students. You will have a better representation for what you will experience out in the "real" world. If a student strictly does private classes for everything, they kind of turn into an antisocial diver who will get frustrated diving with anyone but the instructor since the only standard of diving they know is that of being a buddy to a professional diver. I hope that makes sense and of course this is all open to debate etc etc. Just my 2 cents on the matter.

 

[TMHeimer]

OrangeCounty, It's not a team sport if you're a solo diver, but of course that is not "taught" and maybe irrelevant here. I think PADI made a good move to include the "mini dive" as OW dive #4. It has given me a chance to impress upon students the need (and proper procedures) to always stay together as buddies. I do think that a lot of the rest of the course, pool or ocean dives, for a large part ignores simply staying really close as buddies. And buddies you encounter of course vary greatly in how they do this. I don't know how valuable a group course really is in developing "team" buddy skills. As in another thread regarding teaching some skills neutrally as opposed to kneeling, I think keeping close as a buddy is not really rocket science. A couple of formation tips, stay really close--that's it. Don't think doing a private class hurts that really. But I didn't take a private OW course, so I'm not an expert.

 

[OrangeCountyScuba]

@TMHeimer
Yes the first statement is irrelevant in this case. We are not discussing group vs. private in tec, I am only commenting on the OW class, where the entirety of this post was directed. I am not a PADI instructor so I will not comment on the "mini dive" but PADI made a good move to include it? I am not sure what that means. Were they not giving students the chance to do an experience dive while supervised as apart of the OW course? I have always included an experience dive at the end of the OW course so my students could prove to me they could stay together, work as a team, and safely conduct a dive on their own accord.

I am confused when you said you have opportunities to work with students in Open Water? What do you mean by this? Are you an Instructor or are you assisting an Instructor?

I am kinda surprised that you think there is no opportunity for students to work as a team in the pool. That is the first place I start team skills. I assume you teach skin diving skills in the pool, or has PADI also done away with that as well? This may ring a bell, the One Up One Down Rule in skin diving. If I am not mistaken that is a team building skill, utilizing your buddy at the surface to assist the diving skin diver back to the surface in the event of entanglement or shallow water blackout. Do you not have students due gear checks during the pool sessions so they are comfortable with their buddies gear and know if everything is operational, so on and so forth? That is also a team skill. I am not trying to make a spectacle of this but I think the smallest skills are the ones that can be most crucial and unfortunately overlooked. You should understand my position after this whether or not you agree I respect your view point either way.

By the way I am one of those instructors that teaches my entire class while neutrally buoyant. Instructors who teach their students on their knees are taking the easy way out and a disservice to the student. Not to mention that you are basically telling students that if they need to they can go sit on the reef, coral, animals etc etc. It sets a horrible precedent for the rest of that students diving career. No diver in this reality needs to go to the bottom to clear their mask or do a reg retrieval but by teaching them on their knees you are setting them up for failure. This last paragraph is my opinion as well as many other instructors as well. I am not looking to debate this, just thought I should at least stand up for that aspect of training that I find extremely important.

Again, I am not looking to ruffle any feathers, these are all opinions that I have in regards to these subjects. Everyone has there own methods of skinning a cat.

 

[TMHeimer]

OrangeCounty, You make good points. To answer your questions:
I am a PADI Divemaster who assists with OW courses. Have assisted about 15 PADI Instructors.
Prior to a couple of years ago, yes there was time on this or that OW checkout dive for divers to buddy up and "tour", but to led by the instructor. The "mini dive" is where students plan and execute their final OW checkout dive with an instructor or assistant shadowing them--new in last 2 years.

Buddy skills: I agree with what you say. I am only talking about the basic buddy skill of stay together. You can't really get seriously separated in the pool. Skin Diving "one up, one down" I don't think has much to do with scuba buddying. I believe skin diving is optional with PADI. I am remiss to not know this for sure.
It seems to be the trend to do everything neutrally that is practical to do neutrally. I don't disagree. I think there is room on some skills to not, if the instructor chooses to. I have assisted the instructor who taught me 10 years ago with a lot done on the knees. Think I turned out OK, but again, maybe irrelevant.

You're not ruffling feathers--I think we're pretty much on the same page.

 

[sheeper]

Ok, just so you know when I asked it was not intended to belittle you or make it sound like your view point was stupid. Just purely wanted to know.

no offense taken. it takes a lot more to offend me!

 

[Littlerayray]

@TMHeimer you say it's not easy to get separated in a pool it depends on what your definition of separated means we tell our students if you can't reach out and touch your buddy then your separated this is very easily achieved in a pool we also stress since their OW will be in a lower vis environment and the vis degrades as the summer goes on that if separation occurs it could be disastrous

 

[TMHeimer]

@TMHeimer you say it's not easy to get separated in a pool it depends on what your definition of separated means we tell our students if you can't reach out and touch your buddy then your separated this is very easily achieved in a pool we also stress since their OW will be in a lower vis environment and the vis degrades as the summer goes on that if separation occurs it could be disastrous

This is great advise. And good teaching. And we have low viz here as well. And separation can be really bad. But it's a pool.