Question about NAUI AOW

[BoltSnap]

This is true ... it's also jargon. I choose to use the more recognizable terminology simply so that my audience will understand what course I'm referring to.

In this case you have succumbed to the other people's standards and way of thinking and you have made the them equal, just like VISA vs. Mastercard. Your audience and potential students have to be made aware that there is a difference and that there is a totally different standard from the rubber stamp factory's standards. If you don't create the awareness, no one else would. It isn't just "jargon" for certain.

I'm not so sure that NAUI's ASD offering is any more "advanced" than anyone else's. I took my AOW from the YMCA in 2001, and when I became a NAUI instructor three years later I was surprised at how little their ASD manual actually had to offer ... so much so that I wrote my own materials for the class. The only part of the NAUI ASD manual that I felt did a pretty complete job was the Search & Recovery chapter. Most of the rest of it is essentially a review of the SD (OW) material. Like most agency offerings that I've seen, the agency-produced materials basically caters to the largest demographic, which is the tourist diver who will be accompanied by a dive guide who will watch over them, set up their gear, and remind them to check their air from time to time. It's (IMO) completely inadequate for people who will be responsible for planning and executing their dives without assistance .. particularly if they're doing deeper dives.

the NAUI Advanced Scuba Diver course (ASD), wasn't meant to present a lot of new material to the student; it is meant to be much more "practical" to give the student more experience in the water. The book may be inadequate in your view, I share the same view, but what is different about NAUI than ALL others is the fact that NAUI allows, trusts and encourages the NAUI instructor to exceed standards and go beyond the material covered/discussed in the course textbook. NAUI's material for the ASD course doesn't stop with the textbook but also provides you with other outlines, presentations, etc. that should be the base "skeleton" for the instructor to build his course and add his own material and references to suit the needs of his students and the needs of their local diving.

With my 40 years as a diver and 30 years as a NAUI instructor, my ASD course outline, presentation and material have evolved to reflect my teaching and diving experience gained in these decades of diving and teaching beyond the NAUI manual. The NAUI standards allow me to be the type of instructor who offers my type of ASD course while still meeting NAUI's standards. It was never meant to be a fixed template with rigid course cue cards for the instructor to follow without much deviation for your experience and efforts as an instructor were the primary drivers for training your students.