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Bitterness of Scuba Instructors
- Thread starter FPDocMatt
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The Chairman
Chairman of the Board
Matt,
thank you for your observations. Your input is valuable and there is a lot we can learn from it, if we truly want to improve. I'll answer your question in just a moment, but I have to say that the response to your feedback is classic. We have the deniers who feel that nothing is wrong and that there is no room for improvement. We have the perceptionists, who argue that it's all relative and that you're relatively wrong. Then there are the easily offended who have turned the tables and think YOU are to blame and how dare you start such a topic. We even have the exceptionists who feel that you can produce no smoking gun, ergo you are a pot stirrer. So far, I have only seen a few attempt to see things from your perspective and try to understand why a large number of people think poorly of some of the combatants, er users who claim to be instructors here on ScubaBoard.
It's amazing how many of us simply resent feedback. It appears that we only want praise, whether it's merited or not. After all, Matt has only given us his honest impression. He hasn't called anyone a name, he's just expressed his perceptions as honestly as he can and it seems that a few just want him to shut up. I think somebody's feelings are hurt! Well, rather than tell Matt that he's the problem, let's embrace the feedback and see what WE can do to change that impression. After all, he's clearly implicated every instructor on ScubaBoard and that's not a bad thing. If we are allowing, or even encouraging our brother/sister instructors to spread this negative perception, then we are just as guilty. No, it's not just Matt. After all, I have seen and heard of many instructors who have negative feelings about ScubaBoard. Why? Ask Matt. He seems to have a better handle on it than many of us so called instructors. I think we need a situational reality check.
Recently, NWGratefulDiver and I had a discussion about this impression. I can vouch that he sees it as a problem as well. He told me of several people who will not participate here on ScubaBoard for this very snarkyness that Matt complains about. A few, including Bob, see this as my problem and that's true to some extent. I do own the domain, but if you know me at all, you know that I have no delusions that I own the community: I don't. I might be the mayor by default, but I delegate the running of ScubaBoard to the advisors and mods. That's not because I am lazy (which I am) but because I know that no one is capable of doing this alone. In reality, many of the mods are selected by YOU the user. It's easy to spot the leaders in any group and we tend to ask them to step forward. BTW, if you see someone who is a leader that you want to help manage our community, then point them out to any Advisor. However, even with more mods, we need to police ourselves a lot more. If we see an instructor acting like Matt suggests, being overly critical, then maybe we need to PM them or bring it up in our Instructor to Instructor forum. The community will only be as strong as our collective commitment to it. This is "fixable" on so many levels if we decide that we want to fix it.
Back to the OP. I have witnessed this "bitterness" and the culprit seems to be the industry and not just the internet. Ever since I first graced an LDS back in 69, there has been a pervasive attitude that "If I don't dive it, teach it or sell it, then it must be CRAP!" I have only been in a couple of shops where this is not the case. Shops controlled the information you the diver received through their instructors and their salesmen. The diving magazines rocked that boat a bit from time to time, but they were controlled by the advertisers so it was easy to keep a lid on it. There was a dilemma with mail order shops and even the magazines did their part to keep that in check. Then came the "information should be free" phenomenon we call the InterWebs. People were circumventing the dive shop to learn about any aspect of Scuba they wanted. They even talked about GEAR, and found they did not always like what their LDS had. A few shops capitalized on this by evolving and this was usually at the expense of the traditional LDSs who had no clue or inclination to learn about social media.
Unfortunately, the genesis of this media was like the old west: without nary a sheriff to keep things civil. rec.scuba was a great place to have a flame war about this or that, but it seemed that the bullies were the only ones having any fun. Out of a dire need for a fun and safe environment to talk about Scuba, ScubaBoard emerged. We did so well in fact, that a lot of those disenchanted with rec.scuba sought refuge here. Not all of them got the memo about being nice. We still work with a number of people who feel it's their right to act like a seagull. As you know, a seagull swoops in, craps all over the place and then leaves with little regard for the havoc they have caused. Some people applaud the seagulls, for whatever reason, and soon we have others trying to out seagull other seagulls. Sometimes it's a race to see who has the highest standards among us instructors. We do that by seagulling any post in order to show how superior we are. We think we are showing off our higher than high standards, but to many like Matt, we often come across as bitter instructors. But we are NOT bitter! Then why do others perceive us as such? In communicating it's not so much what we say as it is what they hear/read/understand. Let's not blame the "Matts" of the forum if our message is coming across garbled. Let's just change how we communicate.
Also, a lot of the former "If I don't dive it, teach it or sell it, it must be crap!" mentality has seeped over here. We often joke about the "If you dive split fins you wilt surely die" statements, but they are just the iteration of that basic mentality. It's sad and we need to curtail that as much as possible. Today's gear is head and shoulders above the gear from yesteryear. I love it. Classes have evolved too, and not for the worse in my book. Look at fun my Rebreather class was. Wow. That's what Scuba should be all about.
Feedback is a bonus for an instructor. It's the only way we can really improve to be a better instructor. Thanks for the input Matt. I read you loud and clear.
thank you for your observations. Your input is valuable and there is a lot we can learn from it, if we truly want to improve. I'll answer your question in just a moment, but I have to say that the response to your feedback is classic. We have the deniers who feel that nothing is wrong and that there is no room for improvement. We have the perceptionists, who argue that it's all relative and that you're relatively wrong. Then there are the easily offended who have turned the tables and think YOU are to blame and how dare you start such a topic. We even have the exceptionists who feel that you can produce no smoking gun, ergo you are a pot stirrer. So far, I have only seen a few attempt to see things from your perspective and try to understand why a large number of people think poorly of some of the combatants, er users who claim to be instructors here on ScubaBoard.
It's amazing how many of us simply resent feedback. It appears that we only want praise, whether it's merited or not. After all, Matt has only given us his honest impression. He hasn't called anyone a name, he's just expressed his perceptions as honestly as he can and it seems that a few just want him to shut up. I think somebody's feelings are hurt! Well, rather than tell Matt that he's the problem, let's embrace the feedback and see what WE can do to change that impression. After all, he's clearly implicated every instructor on ScubaBoard and that's not a bad thing. If we are allowing, or even encouraging our brother/sister instructors to spread this negative perception, then we are just as guilty. No, it's not just Matt. After all, I have seen and heard of many instructors who have negative feelings about ScubaBoard. Why? Ask Matt. He seems to have a better handle on it than many of us so called instructors. I think we need a situational reality check.
Recently, NWGratefulDiver and I had a discussion about this impression. I can vouch that he sees it as a problem as well. He told me of several people who will not participate here on ScubaBoard for this very snarkyness that Matt complains about. A few, including Bob, see this as my problem and that's true to some extent. I do own the domain, but if you know me at all, you know that I have no delusions that I own the community: I don't. I might be the mayor by default, but I delegate the running of ScubaBoard to the advisors and mods. That's not because I am lazy (which I am) but because I know that no one is capable of doing this alone. In reality, many of the mods are selected by YOU the user. It's easy to spot the leaders in any group and we tend to ask them to step forward. BTW, if you see someone who is a leader that you want to help manage our community, then point them out to any Advisor. However, even with more mods, we need to police ourselves a lot more. If we see an instructor acting like Matt suggests, being overly critical, then maybe we need to PM them or bring it up in our Instructor to Instructor forum. The community will only be as strong as our collective commitment to it. This is "fixable" on so many levels if we decide that we want to fix it.
Back to the OP. I have witnessed this "bitterness" and the culprit seems to be the industry and not just the internet. Ever since I first graced an LDS back in 69, there has been a pervasive attitude that "If I don't dive it, teach it or sell it, then it must be CRAP!" I have only been in a couple of shops where this is not the case. Shops controlled the information you the diver received through their instructors and their salesmen. The diving magazines rocked that boat a bit from time to time, but they were controlled by the advertisers so it was easy to keep a lid on it. There was a dilemma with mail order shops and even the magazines did their part to keep that in check. Then came the "information should be free" phenomenon we call the InterWebs. People were circumventing the dive shop to learn about any aspect of Scuba they wanted. They even talked about GEAR, and found they did not always like what their LDS had. A few shops capitalized on this by evolving and this was usually at the expense of the traditional LDSs who had no clue or inclination to learn about social media.
Unfortunately, the genesis of this media was like the old west: without nary a sheriff to keep things civil. rec.scuba was a great place to have a flame war about this or that, but it seemed that the bullies were the only ones having any fun. Out of a dire need for a fun and safe environment to talk about Scuba, ScubaBoard emerged. We did so well in fact, that a lot of those disenchanted with rec.scuba sought refuge here. Not all of them got the memo about being nice. We still work with a number of people who feel it's their right to act like a seagull. As you know, a seagull swoops in, craps all over the place and then leaves with little regard for the havoc they have caused. Some people applaud the seagulls, for whatever reason, and soon we have others trying to out seagull other seagulls. Sometimes it's a race to see who has the highest standards among us instructors. We do that by seagulling any post in order to show how superior we are. We think we are showing off our higher than high standards, but to many like Matt, we often come across as bitter instructors. But we are NOT bitter! Then why do others perceive us as such? In communicating it's not so much what we say as it is what they hear/read/understand. Let's not blame the "Matts" of the forum if our message is coming across garbled. Let's just change how we communicate.
Also, a lot of the former "If I don't dive it, teach it or sell it, it must be crap!" mentality has seeped over here. We often joke about the "If you dive split fins you wilt surely die" statements, but they are just the iteration of that basic mentality. It's sad and we need to curtail that as much as possible. Today's gear is head and shoulders above the gear from yesteryear. I love it. Classes have evolved too, and not for the worse in my book. Look at fun my Rebreather class was. Wow. That's what Scuba should be all about.
Feedback is a bonus for an instructor. It's the only way we can really improve to be a better instructor. Thanks for the input Matt. I read you loud and clear.
Excellent post, NetDoc. I think, as a newb who came to scubaboard while still finishing up OW, I've seen some of the "bitterness" Matt talked about. I personally wouldn't have said "many instructors" as Matt did, but there is no question some folks just come across more aggressively than others, on the internet and in real life. Nature of the beast, I think.
From my perspective, while there are certainly cranky individuals, it seems less bitterness at students and more bitterness at the system. The decline of the diving civilization, so to speak. It's hard to be elitist (intentionally or not) when someone proves joe-schmoe can come in off the street and learn enough about diving in a weekend to successfully dive the same reefs people were taking months to learn to dive on before. Bringing the sport to the masses also brings the masses (many of them "unwashed") to the sport, which is always a double-edged sword. You gain more money but you deal with more a-holes in the process.
EDIT: I'm sure there is an argument to be made that OW training today doesn't make a diver, it makes a liability or an accident waiting to happen. That certainly could be true but the same has always been the case. The skills of diving aren't particularly difficult, physically, and that's really all you can train. The rest is, and always has been, up to the individual diver to grasp on a mental level. It's very hard to teach someone how to react to panic and how to handle emergencies without putting them in those situations. I think this is what the Agencies have figured out... students don't need to know EVERYTHING and the most important thing they need to know can't really be taught in a classroom. It seems that really bothers some instructors.
From my perspective, while there are certainly cranky individuals, it seems less bitterness at students and more bitterness at the system. The decline of the diving civilization, so to speak. It's hard to be elitist (intentionally or not) when someone proves joe-schmoe can come in off the street and learn enough about diving in a weekend to successfully dive the same reefs people were taking months to learn to dive on before. Bringing the sport to the masses also brings the masses (many of them "unwashed") to the sport, which is always a double-edged sword. You gain more money but you deal with more a-holes in the process.
EDIT: I'm sure there is an argument to be made that OW training today doesn't make a diver, it makes a liability or an accident waiting to happen. That certainly could be true but the same has always been the case. The skills of diving aren't particularly difficult, physically, and that's really all you can train. The rest is, and always has been, up to the individual diver to grasp on a mental level. It's very hard to teach someone how to react to panic and how to handle emergencies without putting them in those situations. I think this is what the Agencies have figured out... students don't need to know EVERYTHING and the most important thing they need to know can't really be taught in a classroom. It seems that really bothers some instructors.
The Chairman
Chairman of the Board
This from a man who lists his location as "Pugetropolis"?You must be confusing me with NetDoc ... he's into punishment ...
I don't care what day it was yesterday: today is always Punday.
OP
FPDocMatt
Contributor
None of those complaints makes me grouchy, but there are others which do. Such as:
- Doctor, the medicine you gave me didn't work. (Said in an accusatory tone.)
- Here's my problem. Nothing works for this problem. (So what am I supposed to do?)
- I'm depressed. Would you sign these disability papers?
It's one of my personal goals to always make people feel uplifted after they've dealt with me. When I first started practicing medicine I was not as good at this as I am now. Have you ever noticed that old doctors are generally nicer than young ones? It takes a lifetime, I think, to develop equanimity and learn to be nice to everybody.
I'd say I'm about 75% there.
The Chairman
Chairman of the Board
I was a mechanic for nigh on to thirty years, and I have to tell you that there are two main differences between mechanics and doctors.
First, we wash our hands BEFORE we use the bathroom.
Second, doctors only have to worry about one make and two models.
Finally, we don't bury our mistakes!
The best mechanics always get to start what they finish.
First, we wash our hands BEFORE we use the bathroom.
Second, doctors only have to worry about one make and two models.
Finally, we don't bury our mistakes!
The best mechanics always get to start what they finish.
OP
FPDocMatt
Contributor
This is surprising to me. I would think that any human being who is in a class to learn to scuba dive is motivated to learn to do it the right way. After all, we are instinctively afraid of drowning. You'd think that the average scuba student would be fully motivated to pay attention and learn to be a good diver.
Yes, you would think. Not always the case. No one is perfect, especially instructors. Instructors do whine to each other privately about "difficult" students but that happens in every job/career. Just like we have all heard of beer muscles, so to exists internet courage. Like I have heard before, meeting some of these people in person, you often find a different personality. I think it is easier to post out your frustrations on someone anonymous than actually deal with your own personal problems.
There are good students, there are bad students. There are good instructors and bad ones. Attitude and behavior go a long way to shape both parties.
OP
FPDocMatt
Contributor
I think what you're seeing is more of an "internet forum" dynamic than a "scuba instructor" dynamic. On web communities most of the discussion is dominated by strong or extreme viewpoints. They are the ones most motivated to chime in. There's an expression in the talk radio arena: "Confuse 'the callers' with 'the listeners' at your own peril."
Beyond that, there's a "pervasive bitterness" among a great many industries/professions, especially these days. Not sure why anyone might expect scuba instructors to be immune.
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