18 yr old Instructor

tarekaly · Jun 12, 2009

I happened to hear about an instructor that is 18 years old in my area. His father is a technical instructor and a course director.

My question is. Do you think that instructor should have some time of actual diving experience before he can be awarded this title? (like a pilot flights hours)

Would you train with him ? (assume you only know the age and no other positive or negative info about him)
:shakehead:

RJP · Jun 12, 2009

tarekaly:
I happened to hear about an instructor that is 18 years old in my area. His father is a technical instructor and a course director.

My question is. Do you think that instructor should have some time of actual diving experience before he can be awarded this title? (like a pilot flights hours)

Would you train with him ? (assume you only know the age and no other positive or negative info about him)

Someone who's 40 and an instructor could have been diving for only a year with 100 dives before becoming and instructor, while this 18yr old "kid" could have been diving for 8 years and have 1,000 dives.

bsigmund · Jun 12, 2009

I don't think that his age means that he doesn't have diving experience. My daughter is 13 and has been certified for over a year. If he was a similar case, he probably has hundreds of dives. My only worry is that he may be lacking in the experience to lead/instruct people at such a young age.

boulderjohn · Jun 12, 2009

Instructors do have minimum number of dives required.

Given the history of his parents, there is a good chance he had his first certification at age 10. If he has ready access to diving, he could easily have been doing 150 dives a year (or many more) since then. That would give him more than 1,200 dives by now. That's more than I have, and I am pretty sure it is more than the vast majority of instructors you will meet.

mikemill · Jun 12, 2009

tarekaly:
My question is. Do you think that instructor should have some time of actual diving experience before he can be awarded this title? (like a pilot flights hours)

Who says he doesn't? PADI junior certs that start at age 10. I don't know the min age for the non-junior OW but from the website it appears that AOW is 15 (12 for Junior AOW). So potentially that is 8 years of diving and at least 3 without the Junior cert.

Cave Bum · Jun 12, 2009

I have a friend, the son of my cave instructor, who is now (I think) 17 and just getting ready to go to college. He's not a instructor, however he designed, built and dove an oxygen rebreather for his 7th or 8th grade science fair project, was the youngest full cave certified diver in the world and has more hours on rebreathers then most anybody around.

My point is age is not the measure of experience. Experience is the measure of experience!

Be safe and have fun in the water! Bruce

tarekaly · Jun 12, 2009

This is a wiz

Puffer Fish · Jun 12, 2009

boulderjohn:
Instructors do have minimum number of dives required.

Given the history of his parents, there is a good chance he had his first certification at age 10. If he has ready access to diving, he could easily have been doing 150 dives a year (or many more) since then. That would give him more than 1,200 dives by now. That's more than I have, and I am pretty sure it is more than the vast majority of instructors you will meet.

When I got my instructor cert.. I have around 200 dives.. but then I question how experienced I was...it was not until years later that I actually had real life saving events happen...

However, today 1,200 seems a pretty small number

Being 18 though.. not sure...as I have gear that is twice as old as he is.

I would think it would depend on the person, most would not be mature enough, but will bet there are some people that would do great.

divelifemagazine · Jun 12, 2009

im a instructor 8 yrs diving experience and a commercial diver im 20 if a 18 yr old is an instructor hes got the experience

adurso · Jun 12, 2009

My daughter is on track to be an instructor at 18. She has been diving since she was ten and has far more dives than most new instructors now.

18 yr old Instructor

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