Completed AOW this weekend

[jmneill]

No ... lay the blame on yourself. There's plenty of really good instructors in Florida. You could have found one. You chose to be lazy and go for convenience. In diving, poor choices can get you dead.



The difference between well skilled and poorly skilled divers has more to do with their choices than it does with their training ... or the agency they trained with. And if PADI's standards don't suit you, there are other alternatives.

Crappy attitudes generally lead to crappy choices ... which makes for crappy divers ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

I would say that the lackadaisical standards that PADI has set for their instructors (which you seem to be reluctant to to comment on) makes for crappy divers and sub standard instructors Bob. The fact that you are turning a blind eye to the fact that the go-to agency of the free world is churning out untold numbers of crap divers is a bit naive on your part. I don't believe the average newly CERTIFIED diver realises how undertrained and underqualified they are to actually dive. Same goes for AOW divers that took the courses back to back. Take it for what it is Bob, you know better.

 

[danvolker]

I would say that the lackadaisical standards that PADI has set for their instructors (which you seem to be reluctant to to comment on) makes for crappy divers and sub standard instructors Bob. The fact that you are turning a blind eye to the fact that the go-to agency of the free world is churning out untold numbers of crap divers is a bit naive on your part. I don't believe the average newly CERTIFIED diver realises how undertrained and underqualified they are to actually dive. Same goes for AOW divers that took the courses back to back. Take it for what it is Bob, you know better.

The only thing is, practically all non-divers know someone who is a diver.....that "diver" is going to be asked, by the non-diver interested in getting certified, where they should go for it--what are the "diver's" recommendations.
Right now, the "divers" are lackadaisical about answering, and many will say any dive shop, or they will just recommend the shop where they go for air fills. However, each diver needs to wake up, and realize that there are so many bad instructors, that their advice to non-divers is critical advice....Divers really need to think about who they will recommend. Right now, I don't think most do. Some divers, may not even have any idea of the skill level characteristic of the dive Shop they use for air fills ( the one conveniently close to them, easiest to use).

This is not easy either....how many of you that have a local diveshop you frequent, have ever actually seen their instructors in the water, doing an OW I class? Even as easy as this is for divers in Palm Beach, with BHB as a hotbed for training, I'd say the majority of our divers have never watched "their" diveshops instructors perform a class. If we can't be knowledgable here, I don't really know how divers everywhere else can handle this.
Maybe things are bad enough so that divers will decide they need to make the extra effort. Maybe they do need to find out if the instructor ( that they might recommend) at the local shop, was one that did 40 or 50 dives tops, and is now an instructor...a 90 day wonder. Or worse, maybe they need to find out if the local instructor is a long time guy with terrible skills and bad teaching habits. We are long past the day when you can just assume any instructor is a good instructor.

The other side of this....the really good instructors DESERVE to be heralded as the best...they are the ones that deserve the recommendations, and the people flocking to them..not the bad instructors.
If all of us made it a point to really know the few really awesome instructors in our own areas, and to make sure THEY are the ones that got recommended by all other divers--to non-divers or new divers...then students would learn vastly better skills, and become much better, safer divers...And the really awesome instructors would start making real money, because their time would be in demand.
The mediocre instructors would also have a REASON to strive to be awesome; right now, too many do not!

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

I would say that the lackadaisical standards that PADI has set for their instructors (which you seem to be reluctant to to comment on) makes for crappy divers and sub standard instructors Bob. The fact that you are turning a blind eye to the fact that the go-to agency of the free world is churning out untold numbers of crap divers is a bit naive on your part. I don't believe the average newly CERTIFIED diver realises how undertrained and underqualified they are to actually dive. Same goes for AOW divers that took the courses back to back. Take it for what it is Bob, you know better.

That's like a fat person claiming that McDonalds is responsible for their obesity ... it's passing the blame on to someone else for choices that you make. My point is that it doesn't matter what PADI's standards are ... only YOU are responsible for your choices. And becoming a safe, skilled diver is all about your choices.

PADI offers a product. They sell that product to instructors. Instructors make their own choices about how to market it ... some do a better job than others. The class you're complaining about can be crappy, or it can be great, depending on how the instructor teaches it. Standards are written in a manner that leaves them open to interpretation ... necessarily so, since they're sold on a worldwide scale to instructors who train divers in a wide variance of environments and conditions. Even within PADI's standardized curriculum, instructors have a wide latitude for making their own choices ... and do so for a variety of reasons.

You, on the other hand, have complete control over the product that you choose to buy ... and how much you ultimately get out of it. So in the end, what you take away from a class is ultimately up to you. And that's my point.

These endless PADI-bashing rants might have some kernel of legitimacy ... but ultimately the choice is yours whether or not to purchase the product. If enough people took responsibility for their choices, and made better onces, PADI would ... if they want to remain the dominant force in the industry ... have to offer a better product. Right now they don't for the simple reason that people are buying what they're offering in large numbers ... they're the dominant agency because they're offering what people want to buy.

So whose fault is it, really, that they're so successful?

You said yourself that you chose the class you did because it was convenient. That's why so many people eat at McDonalds ... so if you're gonna eat fast food, don't complain that it's not good for you. You could have had a better product ... you chose not to.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

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If all of us made it a point to really know the few really awesome instructors in our own areas, and to make sure THEY are the ones that got recommended by all other divers--to non-divers or new divers...then students would learn vastly better skills, and become much better, safer divers...And the really awesome instructors would start making real money, because their time would be in demand.
The mediocre instructors would also have a REASON to strive to be awesome; right now, too many do not!

... and that's really the point ... it's not agency standards that make a terrific class, or a terrific instructor ... it's the ability of the instructor to engage the student in learning, and to offer a quality class. Several of the best instructors I know are PADI instructors ... including the guy who also happens to be our local GUE instructor. If PADI standards are so bad, how is it that these terrific instructors are able to offer such a great class and do it within PADI standards?

People need to be educated in their responsibility as divers to make better choices ... and to not settle for mediocracy ... and most of all, to take responsibility for themselves. When you settle for convenience, you usually end up settling for less than you could have had. In dive training, quality will usually cost more, take a longer time, and require you to work harder. If you don't want to do those things, then don't complain if you end up with a crappy class ... you got what you paid for.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[ScubaSteve]

Continuing down this OFF TOPIC course.......


While I agree that many divers are to blame for their lack of skill, I think that to say every diver is is just too broad a brush.

A brand new diver has no way of know that they need to ask questions about their instructor and the shop they are associated with (if associated to one at all). It is like a new driver studying their choices in Driver trainer instructors before choosing. In both cases, I personally went into the classes thinking "COOL! I have wanted to do this for so long. Think of all the awesome things that will come from this." At no point does it cross most new diver's minds that the instructor they have chosen might be a arse who is just pumping students through to grab lots of money. If they let somebody through that has barely (or not at all) met the standards, then that person thinks that they have done a great job. They have no way of knowing otherwise. Their standard had just been set.

Now, anybody that is looking to advance their diving may be a little different. Certainly anybody that reads ScubaBoard should know what to ask and of whom but for the millions of divers out there (young and old) that do not log onto a version of ScubaBoard everyday, they may still think that if the instructor is an instructor, it is because they have been proven to be able to properly instruct and teach and keep people safe while doing so.

Bottom line is, the argument that "You should have interviewed the instructor/shop first so it is your fault" is more often than not invalid IMO. But then, it just that: my opinion.

 

[elan]

As long as you became a better diver those money are well spent.
Congratulations

 

[jmneill]

That's like a fat person claiming that McDonalds is responsible for their obesity ... it's passing the blame on to someone else for choices that you make. My point is that it doesn't matter what PADI's standards are ... only YOU are responsible for your choices. And becoming a safe, skilled diver is all about your choices.

PADI offers a product. They sell that product to instructors. Instructors make their own choices about how to market it ... some do a better job than others. The class you're complaining about can be crappy, or it can be great, depending on how the instructor teaches it. Standards are written in a manner that leaves them open to interpretation ... necessarily so, since they're sold on a worldwide scale to instructors who train divers in a wide variance of environments and conditions. Even within PADI's standardized curriculum, instructors have a wide latitude for making their own choices ... and do so for a variety of reasons.

You, on the other hand, have complete control over the product that you choose to buy ... and how much you ultimately get out of it. So in the end, what you take away from a class is ultimately up to you. And that's my point.

These endless PADI-bashing rants might have some kernel of legitimacy ... but ultimately the choice is yours whether or not to purchase the product. If enough people took responsibility for their choices, and made better onces, PADI would ... if they want to remain the dominant force in the industry ... have to offer a better product. Right now they don't for the simple reason that people are buying what they're offering in large numbers ... they're the dominant agency because they're offering what people want to buy.

So whose fault is it, really, that they're so successful?

You said yourself that you chose the class you did because it was convenient. That's why so many people eat at McDonalds ... so if you're gonna eat fast food, don't complain that it's not good for you. You could have had a better product ... you chose not to.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

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... and that's really the point ... it's not agency standards that make a terrific class, or a terrific instructor ... it's the ability of the instructor to engage the student in learning, and to offer a quality class. Several of the best instructors I know are PADI instructors ... including the guy who also happens to be our local GUE instructor. If PADI standards are so bad, how is it that these terrific instructors are able to offer such a great class and do it within PADI standards?

People need to be educated in their responsibility as divers to make better choices ... and to not settle for mediocracy ... and most of all, to take responsibility for themselves. When you settle for convenience, you usually end up settling for less than you could have had. In dive training, quality will usually cost more, take a longer time, and require you to work harder. If you don't want to do those things, then don't complain if you end up with a crappy class ... you got what you paid for.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

Blaming the average new OW student for picking the wrong instructor is nonsense. Same thing with an AOW student if he or she were to go OW to AOW back to back. The industry standards are inexcusable, and what's really sad, is that even these minimal standards are often not adhered to. Your Mcdonalds analogy just doesn't work here Bob.
The "you got what you paid for" is also a cliche that doesn't apply here. How would the average new OW student know if they had "gotten what they paid for"?

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Blaming the average new OW student for picking the wrong instructor is nonsense. Same thing with an AOW student if he or she were to go OW to AOW back to back. The industry standards are inexcusable, and what's really sad, is that even these minimal standards are often not adhered to. Your Mcdonalds analogy just doesn't work here Bob.
The "you got what you paid for" is also a cliche that doesn't apply here. How would the average new OW student know if they had "gotten what they paid for"?

OW, I would agree ... AOW, no. By the time you've completed your OW course you have a basis upon which to build decisions. You ... and only you ... know whether or not you're ready to progress. Anybody who's reading this remembers what you felt like when you completed your OW training. Either you felt like you were prepared to dive or you didn't. I'm not a big fan of how AOW classes are marketed as "more dives with an instructor". Then again, I don't teach that way. If you need more dives with an instructor after OW, that's an indication that you didn't meet the objectives of your OW class, and should not have been certified.

But that's a topic for a different thread. I'll simply point out the difference between the OP (this class was great) ... and you (this class sucked). Who do you suppose got what they went into the class for? And why?

That's really the point I'm trying to make. We can sit around our keyboards and bash the agency or the instructor or someone else ... it's been a common theme in threads like this one for as long as I've been a member of ScubaBoard. Or we can take it upon ourselves to get the most out of a class by putting effort into evaluating the instructor and the class before paying for it, and by putting effort into getting the most out of what the instructor is offering. It's ultimately up to us. I think I teach a pretty challenging Advanced class ... and some students require more work than others. But the ones who get the most out of it are the ones who not only challenge themselves to learn, but who challenge me by asking lots of questions and putting lots of effort into performing the class exercises. The OP sounds like one of those students ... someone who came away from the class feeling like he got a really positive experience. He got what he paid for. Payment doesn't just mean finances, it also means the degree of thought and effort you put into the class. The instructor or agency can't supply those ... you have to.

And if you feel like you got shortchanged, for goodness sakes you shouldn't be talking to ScubaBoard about it ... you should be taking that up with the person who taught the class ... most of them would want to know ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[AfterDark]

Right now they don't for the simple reason that people are buying whatthey're offering in large numbers ... they're the dominant agency becausethey're offering what people want to buy. ... Bob (GratefulDiver)

Bob, I agree with everythingin your post. On the quoted statement mytake is that PADI's depiction of diving as something akin to hiking doesn'thelp alert people to the gravity of their choice(s).

The OP posted feeling more confident in self, training, and gear. I'd say job well done! Diving is what makes a diver, diving is training.

 

[DiverGirl1972]

I agree that the student (new or not) does shoulder the responsibility of ensuring they align themselves with a quality instructor. We live in an age where you can research darn near anything on the internet. You can also ask for references or seek out the opinions of others in your local diving community. The bottom line is, most people don't because they get lazy and they want instant gratification.

I recently bought a brand spanking new Mustang GT. As with most obsessed car owners, I wanted to be sure that I was taking the best possible care of it. Just to purchase a "starter set" of car care products ("shampoo", sealant, microfiber towels and DA orbital polisher, etc...), I spent HOURS researching techniques and tips for washing a car, different products, reading reviews, combing through forums, etc... to ensure that I made the best informed choice. I was willing to do all of that work just to prevent swirl marks!! How many people considering diving do the same? Swirl marks will never become a life and death situation, but poor diving instruction can be.

Personally, I did what most people do. I went to the closest (read: only) LDS in my city and signed up! One of the instructors happened to be hanging out there, and I was assigned to him. Just like that. Fortunately, I got lucky and my instructor was excellent, thorough and ensured I was appropriately prepared before issuing my certification.

If I hadn't been so lucky, I would've stepped back, accepted responsibility for not doing my due diligence and moved forward having learned my lesson. If I hadn't felt comfortable, I would have found another instructor (by actually doing some research!) to give me the remedial training I required to get to the point where I was ready for my learner's permit. I refuse to give away my power by not accepting responsibility. I simply don't understand the people who constantly blame "PADI" for the ills of the diving world.

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BTW, and most importantly, congrats to Malpaso for continuing his dive training! Best of luck to ya

 

[jmneill]

OW, I would agree ... AOW, no. By the time you've completed your OW course you have a basis upon which to build decisions. You ... and only you ... know whether or not you're ready to progress. Anybody who's reading this remembers what you felt like when you completed your OW training. Either you felt like you were prepared to dive or you didn't. I'm not a big fan of how AOW classes are marketed as "more dives with an instructor". Then again, I don't teach that way. If you need more dives with an instructor after OW, that's an indication that you didn't meet the objectives of your OW class, and should not have been certified.

But that's a topic for a different thread. I'll simply point out the difference between the OP (this class was great) ... and you (this class sucked). Who do you suppose got what they went into the class for? And why?

That's really the point I'm trying to make. We can sit around our keyboards and bash the agency or the instructor or someone else ... it's been a common theme in threads like this one for as long as I've been a member of ScubaBoard. Or we can take it upon ourselves to get the most out of a class by putting effort into evaluating the instructor and the class before paying for it, and by putting effort into getting the most out of what the instructor is offering. It's ultimately up to us. I think I teach a pretty challenging Advanced class ... and some students require more work than others. But the ones who get the most out of it are the ones who not only challenge themselves to learn, but who challenge me by asking lots of questions and putting lots of effort into performing the class exercises. The OP sounds like one of those students ... someone who came away from the class feeling like he got a really positive experience. He got what he paid for. Payment doesn't just mean finances, it also means the degree of thought and effort you put into the class. The instructor or agency can't supply those ... you have to.

And if you feel like you got shortchanged, for goodness sakes you shouldn't be talking to ScubaBoard about it ... you should be taking that up with the person who taught the class ... most of them would want to know ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

Bob, I agree with a lot of your post, but here's a couple things...
#1 Upon completeing my OW course and getting "certified" I had all the confidence in the world. (loved my instructor) It was only with experience and luck that I eventually realized I shouldn't have been certified to begin with. But agency standards allowed it. Instructors fault? Now this becomes a moral question. BTW this was SDI, not PADI.
#2 You indicated I might feel short changed. Quite the opposite. $200 bucks for a private AOW class? I don't know how the instructor pays the bills. That said, after experiencing the course and it's dumbed down requirements I think it's safe to say that pretty much anyone with a couple dozen dives under their belt is already AOW by industry standards.
AOW... nothing more than a gimmic giving newer divers a false sense of security and experienced divers wondering why PADI just didn't ask for the money and a dive log.