When I became a PADI DM, I learned all about required OW skills I had never encountered before. I went back to my original logbook from the resort in Mexico that had certified me years before and saw that those skills were all listed there, with the instructor's signature indicating that I had done them all. I had never noticed that before. Of course, we had not done a lot of them during our 2-hour pool session. It was then that I realized for the first time how many standards my instruction had skipped. Whose fault was it? If I had looked at those records and realized what a lie they were, I could have reported them, but I didn't.
After becoming a DM and then an AI and then an instructor, I cannot estimate how many classes I have observed or led over many years, and I can honestly say I have never seen a single standard skipped in any of them. In more modern times, students receive surveys from PADI asking them what happened in their classes. When I was still a DM, a survey indicated that the instructor with whom I was working had not used an ascent line during the CESA, and PADI investigated. It was not at all true--we used ascent lines for all CESAs, but PADI checked to make sure we were doing it right.
About 50 years ago an education researcher named John Goodlad decided to compare different instructional programs to see which were most effective. Different schools used different programs, but Goodlad went into the classrooms to see them in action. What he discovered was that he could not compare the programs, because once the teachers closed the doors to their classrooms, they pretty much did whatever they damned well pleased. Similarly, in an English department in which I taught, one of the teachers taught the novel Candide in every class she taught--Major World Writers, Major American Writers, Major British Writers--it didn't matter what the name of the course was, she taught what she wanted to teach the way she wanted to teach it. That sort of thing happens every day in classrooms everywhere, despite the fact that those teachers are evaluated regularly and could supposedly lose their jobs for teaching something other than the school approved curriculum.
After becoming a DM and then an AI and then an instructor, I cannot estimate how many classes I have observed or led over many years, and I can honestly say I have never seen a single standard skipped in any of them. In more modern times, students receive surveys from PADI asking them what happened in their classes. When I was still a DM, a survey indicated that the instructor with whom I was working had not used an ascent line during the CESA, and PADI investigated. It was not at all true--we used ascent lines for all CESAs, but PADI checked to make sure we were doing it right.
About 50 years ago an education researcher named John Goodlad decided to compare different instructional programs to see which were most effective. Different schools used different programs, but Goodlad went into the classrooms to see them in action. What he discovered was that he could not compare the programs, because once the teachers closed the doors to their classrooms, they pretty much did whatever they damned well pleased. Similarly, in an English department in which I taught, one of the teachers taught the novel Candide in every class she taught--Major World Writers, Major American Writers, Major British Writers--it didn't matter what the name of the course was, she taught what she wanted to teach the way she wanted to teach it. That sort of thing happens every day in classrooms everywhere, despite the fact that those teachers are evaluated regularly and could supposedly lose their jobs for teaching something other than the school approved curriculum.
