PADI IE (Right wing instructor thoughts!)

[Liquid]

If you'r going to be an instructor, for you, I belive the best is to become a PADI instructor.
Why?
Becouse as a PADI instructor you are practically free to do what you want, for whoever you want.

Is it it good?
I dont think so, to my opininon it's bad, but, I am an SSI instructor, and what stinks the most about that, is that I can work only for an SSI dive-center, not for anyone else, and that stinks.

 

[neil]

"If you'r going to be an instructor, for you, I belive the best is to become a PADI instructor.
Why?
Becouse as a PADI instructor you are practically free to do what you want, for whoever you want."

Liquid, I'm not sure why you think this is true for PADI instructors. No instructor is free to do ANYTHING they want. You SHOULD adhere to agency standards no matter what.
As a NAUI instructor, I have certain freedoms unavailable to me as a PADI inst., and, believe it or not, vice versa! It is true that SSI seems to be the only agency you can't teach independently through.
Why don't you spend the time and money and cross over to PADI? You'll be more marketable, and it seems, happier. Good luck,
Neil

 

[Butch103]

Thanks all for your help and suggestions. I wasn't 100 % sure what the crossover "rules" were. I understand they are different for the different organizations. Neil it does make sense to associate with the LDS which you prefer to do business with. I think I will talk to my LDS and get their opinion on it all. Butch "Not so now"

 

[Liquid]

Neil-

First of all, I am not active any more as an instructor to much, just a bit on holydays, and with the centers I know, that are SSI, so to me it dosent really matter.

Now what I ment about freedom- Come on, a padi instructor, alone in thailand, who is going to check what you are doing?
If you have the envelopes you can do WHATEVER you want. Even, god forbids, not work according to standards! have you never met those 2.5-3 days crash course students from the far east that praise their great padi instructor?

I've seen them just to much.

One last thing-SSI, amongst the american agencys (I belive) is the only one that ties an instructor to the center, but I think that in european agencys it also this way (BTW-did I mention that usualy the european agencys are FAR better? but that's a matterial for a different thread).

Just my opinion...

 

[cmay]

Hello guys,

Liquid, I am sorry you have had bad experiences with PADI divers. I think it is more the exception than the rule. And as far as "being able to do anything you want" as a PADI instructor, I do not feel that is the case at all. You kind of make it sound like we are all out on the street handing out "those little blue envelopes" to anyone that passes by. We can't do anything we want because we all know that PADI has this little thing called the Quality Assurance department, and they DO make inquires. I suggest you look at an Undersea Journal sometime, PADI kicks people out on a regular basis. If you feel these divers you run into are so bad I suggest you contact Quality Assurance. The instructor's and shop's name is on every diver's C-card.

On the same note, has everyone shared there views and complaints with their respective agency? If not, I really do not think we have room to complain. It has been very interesting and fun to hear others views on the subject, but at the same rate how cn we legitimately complain when we have not tried to help solve anything.

But as the saying goes, "opinions are like a** holes, everybody has one". This is just mine.

 

[Liquid]

Let me rephrase what I said- Before I get everybody on my throat (again).

I do not mean that this is the general rule,. I do not mean that generaly PADI is bad. What I mean is, that the way that PADI works alows for those things to happen in this sort of way more than any other agency. Most of PADI's instructors are good ones, but if you take the percentage of bad ones, in comparison to other agencys, I belive that in PADI it is larger. SSI has, as a astandard, in every center someone incharge of quality, that check the instructors. Usualy one of the more experienced instructors of the dive-center. I belive this is very good.

But still- the biggest problem with instructors today is the "instant" instractors, or the "o/w on january instractor on december". The only ones that act correctly in those matters are the european agencys. There there is a period you have to wait between every level of certification, a certain amount of dives you have to accumulat between the certification levels, etc. etc.

I can give an example of what was practiced in TIDF (the israely diving federation) when it was a part of CMAS:
You start an open water course, starting with 2 days of snorkeling, go on with a week of the o/w course. than you have to do 10 diving days with an assistant instructor, before reciving your certificate (which is more or less equivalent to AOWD, up to depth of 30 meters). Than you can go to a dive master course, with at least 60 dives, than a year later assistant instractor course (must have at least 200 logged dives), and a year later instructor.

Now-I agree it's a bit radical, but it's better than what is goig on today in most of the big organisations (including SSI). There should be something in the middle, some time that must elapse between levels, something that makes instructors be experienced with several sorts of dives before being certificated as instructors. Otherwise, I witnessed it several times, instructors will teach about things they have absolutly no experience in, and that's wrong.

 

[SubMariner]

"Most of PADI's instructors are good ones, but if you take the percentage of bad ones, in comparison to other agencys, I belive that in PADI it is larger."

I think this is misleading. PADI is the largest certifying agency and has the largest share of the dive market. So if every agency has "bad" instructors, it only goes to reason that the largest agency would have the largest share. NOT because they have more "bad instructors", but simply because they have more members.

~SubMariner~

 

[Walter]

Without picking on any one agency, I'll take the opposite position and state that in my opinion the overwhelming majority of instructors I've had dealings with are incompetent.

WWW™

 

[ifukuda]

Belushi,

It is my understanding that you're already an instructor at another organization. Therefore, I don't think PADI's shortcomings in the area of instructor certification really apply to you (I am assuming that you're a good instrcutor to begin with). Unless, of course, PADI has come up with some way of extracting knowledge and experience that you already have out of your brain, when you become one of their instructors...

I think your decision to join (or not to join) PADI should be a business based decision. Would you benefit by joining PADI? If you have alot to gain, go for it. If you don't, why waste your time?

Just my $0.02

 

[neil]

Wow, Walter! I'm not sure whether or not to be ashamed that I've never had the balls to say what you did. Frankly I've had the same thoughts. It's a deplorable state of affairs, mitigated only by the fact, in my opinion, that very few people who become instructors continue teaching for very long. It must be very difficult to teach scuba when you don't know what you're doing! It's hard enough when you DO.
Neil