Some of the worst instructors I have ever seen in action have 20-30+ years diving and thousands of dives.
Some of the best instructors I have ever seen in action have 2-4 years experience and 200-300 dives.
Some of the best instructors I have ever seen in action have 20-30 years experience and thousands of dives.
Some of the worst instructors I have ever seen in action have 2-4 years experience and 200-300 dives.
You can have all of the experience you want and be your own self proclaimed dive god of gods but suck at teaching.
You can have limited experience but be a competent diver and be one of the best instructors around. It all comes down to you having the ability to convey information and coach people to bring the best out in them. If you don't have the ability to talk to people and help them to learn then all is lost. I don't care if you dove all over the world and have 10,000 dives and can dive 3 miles into a cave. If you can't connect with people or are so jaded in your opinions that you can't bring yourself to follow the standards then you have no place as an instructor. Don't forget, we are talking open water here where newly certified divers can now really begin to learn to dive by diving.
The jaded, elitist attitude of some still amazes me. Just because you waited 20 years to become an instructor does not mean that everyone else has to. Maybe you would have been a great instructor after 2, maybe you will suck after 20. I have personally witnessed both extremes. There is a process available in many agencies to become a dive professional. If it exists and someone utilizes it then good for them. Don't forget that not every person that attempts to become a dive professional makes it through the program. Many are weeded out or have to repeat. I have witnessed that too. Some of the worst candidates I have watched fail had tons of experience. Yeah, tons of experience and years of bad habits. Some lacked the ability to publicly speak or convey simple material.
I still work part time as a paramedic instructor at a community college that prepares candidates for state certification as a paramedic. I personally have a lot of experience, including years as a critical care flight paramedic, working in ERs, trauma centers, on the ground and in the air. We see new candidates who came to the program but were never in an ambulance before. We all thought, this is BS, they should at least get some experience as a first responder or EMT but, no, the program allowed it so we dealt with it. In the end, they were some of the best students who went on to become great paramedics that I would be happy to see if I would need them. This is life and death and we stress out the candidates for a reason. At the end of the 13 month program, if we started with the usual 50 students, usually less than 20 graduate and less then that will actually work as a paramedic. Some of our worst students had a lot of EMT experience and thought they new it all but surprise, they did not and came with too many bad habits and bombed out of the program. I see diving instructors as no different. Yes, some of the best students we had came to us with lots of experience but some that came with the same experience simply could not cut it. And, there was always someone that sucked and we did not like and knew they would be terrible but somehow they managed to squeak through the program and make it, some after several years and 2-3 attempts. Some of them had lots of experience too, some did not. We are all different.
So yes, even if another life and death career choice we were able to see that some of the best paramedics out there were never in the back of an ambulance before class started. At least with diving, you have to have a minimum of 100 dives to become an instructor. Thats a pretty good start. If you waited 10-20 years but did not have to, that was your choice.
