Originally posted by jbd
and agree with some of your thinking. I'm not sure that we as a dive community need another agency especially with a DIR attitude(I'm talking about the bashing kind of thing). I do think you are correct with your mentoring idea for new divers--I wish I had that kind of help when I got started. Could this not be done at the shop level without agency involvement or even with agency guidlines for national uniformity for that matter?
As for my OW class I'm the only one still diving.
BTW I'm not insinuating that you would get involved in agency bashing but I can see where the potential would be high for that to develope similar to what happened in the DIR group. DIR is a good philosophy but apparently some folks got carried away with it from what I read on the net.
The idea would not be so prescriptive as DIR. and could just be run by particular shops as part of an 'executive package' if they wanted to, but it would lose the advantages that some degree of compulsion would bring. The fundamental idea of TIR would be that the Instructor is the man on the scene, and can make a certain number of choices, based on the local conditions. Rather that giving the PADI style step by step guide, If an instructor is given a list of key skills to be mastered before open water, and before certification, he can then juggle things round to suit his class's needs. - ie, letting the 'profesional' instructor actually behave like a professional!
A good example would be that if a course required the student to demonstrate 3 different entry techniques into open water then, rather than the PADI instructor manual saying that Giant stride is done in module 4, seated entry in module 2 etc... the instructor should have the discression to do that when he wants to, and especially in open water, when facilities etc.. allow.
Equally, students should have a pool session without any learning objectives, but to play with different bits of equipment. Familiarity with equipment is something that is missing in newly qualified divers. Why not give them an extra session, where they can try out different styles, or practice techniques or just play to build up confidence. In many OW courses students are rushed through their equipment setup each time, often with instructors and DM's hovering so that everything can be done and the class finished on time. Why not make this into a better defined 'module' or teaching objective. Allmost all instructors that I know have at least one spare BCD, and most stores have more than one style BCD in their rental inventory, let the students see them and have a play in the pool.
The ideas that I have would result in longer courses, with consequentially fewer people going through the OW course, but those that do are more confident, and come back. Just look at the number of newly qualified divers here that have some fundamental questions regarding equipment etcetera. Why don't we (as the instructors / DM's etc..) give them a better education? and a better start to their diving career?
As for the instructor Vs experienced diver, I was certified a DM by a PADI MSDT who had less than 10% of my dives, and almost all of them had been from PADI courses, he had no real experience of just going off diving, and what was entailed in organising a trip offshore to dive. He could organise a perfect OW course at the local inland diving site, and that was the limit of his experience! Yes, as an OW factory he was far better than I would ever be, but for sorting out a dive 2 miles offshore from a 6m RIB? There was no way he had the experience to do it.
Unfortunately, there are quite a large number of instructors that have gone from OW - AOW - Rescue - DM - OWSI without any real experience, and most of their 100 necessary dives done on courses! Then once they get to OWSI, they do OW courses, and don't get out there doing real diving!
For Submariner:-
If you go to your local library or bookshop (certainly in the UK) you will find any number of different diving texts, however, for an open water course, there is no real substitute for proper face to face learning. If CD-ROM based self learning was so good why don't all the *REALLY* good university's just put their courses on CD-ROM and sell it? It isn't the best way of teaching! Whilst writing all the teaching materials would be a mammoth task it isn't unfeasable! (PhD thesis in less than a year of evenings, and that is FAR harder than writing the relevant teaching materials)
Equally, for Liability insurance, who thinks that PADI carries large liability insurance? They don't! they hide behind RSTC guidelines, and make their instructors carry liability insurance. The PADI program follows the national guidelines, and only if the instructor strays from these is there any liability, and it is then the instructors fault. Yes PADI will have some insurance, but the whole system is designed to minimse *their* liability.
On the other hand is the BSAC. Their instructors are covered by the clubs national insurance, and the club falls outside 'recognised industry standards' and their insurance is expensive (in the order of £500,000), but this covers all thei members, and this proce divided by their 75,000 members works out at only £6.60 or so per member on their club membership, a far better deal that the £100 for PADI insurance!.
As for 'Why stay with PADI' - I stayed with them untill I actually realised that they weren't what I wanted, although, they provided what I thought I wanted at the time. Since finishing my DM course I have taught myself a lot of things that are not in the PADI world, through membership of a BSAC club and a FFESSM club. Equally, books like Deeper into Diving (John Lippman) etc.. have improved my knowledge significantly. You only know that you don't know enough, when you have found what you didn't know that you didn't know. After finishing my DM course, I have DM'd on and off for 3 years or so. In that time, I have talked to people trained by / investigated as many agencies that are active here, and haven't found anything that I would be prepared to teach, as I am now firmly convinced that there are major deficiencies in the education of a lot of divers.
