How happy are you with today's level of Diver Education?

[packman]

While it varies according the diver and the instructor, I'd say on average today's freshly minted AOW diver is equivalent to yesterday's freshly minted BOW diver.

 

[sabbath999]

It all depends on what instructor they had during their class. The difference can be night and day between two divers certified by the same agency as OW divers.

Could not have said it better myself.

Some people are just fine, and some are horror shows.

It is funny, though, how you can pretty well tell where a noob was trained by how good or bad they are in the water.

There are two local dive shops whose trainees I can tell in an instant because they have no idea what they are doing. I am not going to mention names in public (I am not a nark), but these shops should have their licensing revoked by their agencies.

I am going to brag on one of my local shops, Capt Nemos in Columbia, MO where we got our OW training... I went out with a bunch of their noobs this summer and every one of them were ready to rock... and two of their dive-masters arranged the dives as a "no cost fun trip", and spent the day working with the already certified divers teaching and reinforcing skills at absolutely no charge to the divers. No hand holding or babysitting, just fun and diving and sharing with less experienced divers.

 

[OldNSalty]

Well, I see bad divers all the time-maybe it was their course, maybe its the diver. I can tell you, I thought, even when taking the course, that there was to much fluff in it. It has been way too many years for me to recall the specfics but I do recall thinking that there were way too many common sence and silly questions in the class (for some reason I recall the instructor talking about sun screen) I remember thinking-shouldn't we be practicing instead of talking about this stuff.

I think another issue is that it isn't stressed that getting certified is just the start and you need to practice. I practice something on almost every dive and what I mean by this is that I determine ahead of time that 'I am going to concentrate on bouancy' or 'when I do my accent I am switching to my air 2 on the last dive', etc.

When I tell my insta-buddy this, I have never had them say 'that's a good idea' They usually look at me funny and might ask how long I've been certified.

 

[ptyx]

Most of the stuff taught and tested is to a rote standard in scuba. A guy/gal takes a class and performs well is certainly going to be very rusty in a few months of inactivity.

5) Moaning about and/or harping at beginners because they don't know it all doesn't help a darned thing. HELPING them get the experience the need and to have fun while doing it without judging them harshly does. I once spent two days diving with an Englishman in Turkey who spent two days apologizing for being a beginner. I spent two days putting him at ease and focusing on the fun. After 2 days he started to relax a bit and have fun. WHO ON EARTH hammered into this poor guy's head that he wasn't worth diving with... .oh wait.... I think I know....

It's more a matter of attitude and 'knowing what you don't know' than skills. Teaching *is* fun, and although sometimes I just want to go and do my dive, I enjoy doing 'guiding' dives. It's also the job of every diver is to keep learning from people with more expertise, and help those with less.

That said, I am NOT a DM/instructor, I don't have the training for it, and although I'm a big supporter of mentoring, when a good third of my instabuddy experiences are divers I wouldn't have let out of the pool/lagoon unassisted, I have to seriously question the meaning of certifications.

 

[walke121]

The problem I tend to see with "new" divers is that some of them think they know it all about diving because they passed their OW or AOW class. Most aren't actually bad divers they are just very inexperienced and I think that is the main issue. I think that the training you receive in your OW or AOW is fine but it is the responsibility of the diver to hone those skills to make them a better diver. I have always said this but there is no replacement for experience. You can train someone until you are blue in the face but until you actually do something in a real situation you really don't know what to expect. I know I am getting alittle off subject here but this is the problem I have with the DM/Instructor requirements being so low. I just don't feel that someone with 50 dives is ready to be a DM but I think its more about the money than actually making sure the diver is ready for the course. That is why I know about 100 DM's and about 2 of them actually do anything with it. Everyone else just likes to flash their card.

 

[JeffG]

It all depends on what instructor they had during their class. The difference can be night and day between two divers certified by the same agency as OW divers.

You know...the more I think about this...the "wronger" it gets.

It might have more to do with the student.

A student that is gung ho and wants to dive will pay better attention, ask better questions etc etc.

A student that is going to Mexico and wants to try scuba diving probably wont care as much.

The truth is somewhere inbetween. Maybe a good instructor can make a "bad" student a good diver, but I would hazard a guess that a "good" student will succeed regardless of the instructor.

 

[Web Monkey]

It's a learners permit. If they start off doing 10-20 foot beach dives, move on to some 30-40 ft reef dives, they should be fine. The current OW course is a starting point, not a final destination.

An OW card is not a learner's permit. It's a card that says the holder is qualified to dive with a buddy, in open water in conditions similar to or better than where they were trained. Regardless of the agency, it's the responsibility of the instructor to make sure that this is the case before signing off on the c-card.

This isn't to say that divers shouldn't learn more after certification, however if you want to consider an OW card to be a Learner's Permit, it should be a permit to learn other things, not how to dive safely in Open Water, within certification limits, with a buddy.

Terry

 

[JeffG]

An OW card is not a learner's permit.

It's a card that says the holder is qualified to dive with a buddy, in open water in conditions similar to or better than where they were trained.

and if the conditions are dissimilar or worse....then what is the OW card???

 

[it_mike]

My two cents...

New divers today are not the aquatics of yesterday. In the `70s, and even the `80s, swimmers and watermen became divers. It was work, training was hard to find outside of certain areas, and you had to demonstrate a definite comfort in the water (not just the ability to keep breathing).

New divers of today are akin to the badboy, biker, 'Harley Owners Group' club members trying to stay upright as they move from watering hole to watering hole. It looks cool, and I can brag!

I'd say it's less the training, and more the type of students the agencies are trying to attract. What do you do when all of the die-hard, strong swimming, apnea diving customers already have all the certifications they want? Go for the 'hey, that would be neat to try', 'I can make it across the pool and back', 'I got water up my nose' customers.

</rant>

 

[DennisS]

An OW card is not a learner's permit. It's a card that says the holder is qualified to dive with a buddy, in open water in conditions similar to or better than where they were trained. Regardless of the agency, it's the responsibility of the instructor to make sure that this is the case before signing off on the c-card.

This isn't to say that divers shouldn't learn more after certification, however if you want to consider an OW card to be a Learner's Permit, it should be a permit to learn other things, not how to dive safely in Open Water, within certification limits, with a buddy.

Terry

I have to agree after thinking about it. It's not a learners permit, the learners permit requires supervision. It's the equivalent of a 16 year old that just received a drivers license. They are qualified/permitted to safely drive a car on any road, day or night, under any road conditions. They usually don't get any more training, but learn from experience.