18 yr old Instructor

[smartties]

Hey guys,

I'm pretty sure some 18 year olds can be very good and experienced divers.

Most I think, are not so experienced and might lack a certain amount of responsibility and insight.

You learn by doing. Thats how all of us learned and got experience.

Personally I wouldn't give my kid (I dont have them yet) to a 18 year old instructor for a Bubblemaker.

Greetz,

Ties

 

[Thalassamania]

Neurophysiology in not my field, perhaps someone on the board who is conversant with the recent literature could comment. I am repeating what I have been told by people I know who are Neurophysiologists and Neurologists. It has nothing to do with the the ability to learn information, thus the 24 year old PhD and such, as I understand it is incomplete development of the structures that aid in: understanding mortality, the consequences of actions, and the ability to move from a specific finding to a general rule and then back to a different, though similar, specific evaluation of a risk.

 

[zaberman1]

What would be the marginal difference between an instructors brain at 18 and an instructors brain at 25? Is this difference significant insofar as teach?
Accepting your assessment for the sake of argument, what would be the implication (in your opinion) of an instructor less than 25 y/o in a diving situation specifically involving mortality, actions involving severe consequences, or the application of risk assessment via specific findings?
If we can arrive at an answer, how would that compare to an older diver/instructor? Not to speak poorly of 'vintage divers' but I've had equal experiences with younger and older divers; ie the older diver banging the computer not understanding why it doesn't clear after violating deco obligations (revealing incapability of assessing risk) or older instructors making the same mistakes. Again, this is a question of generality, not specifics.

An alternative thought regarding brain physiology:

Brain elasticities are greater when the brain is younger, giving more flexibility for a younger instructor to learn and conceptualize information. It gives a new meaning to those hard headed older instructors . Again, what are the marginal elasticities? Now, I am not a neuroscientist, I am a political scientist so forgive me if this interpretation varies greatly from the true meaning of brain elasticities.

 

[I Dive]

I am a political scientist...

This changes things. I have no problem being taught by a young Instructor, but I refuse to be taught by a Political Scientist!

 

[Thalassamania]

I guess the point is that learning and judgment are not the same thing and there appears to be an age medicated dependency, that has nothing to do with experience or what has been learned, that is structural, when it comes to judgment.