Do we need instructors?

[Teamcasa]

After seeing this, I remembered this (from a deleted post)

The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but that is the way to bet." Damon Runyon

No amount of air in my BCD can compensate for the extra weight of a big-headed instructor.

 

[Thalassamania]

So you'd bet on a good mentor, just as I would, eh?

Look, my perspective here is a bit different. I come from a community where most post-entry level training is done in a mentoring situation. Divers go through the 100 hour entry level course and come out as 30 foot divers. They then have to dive with other divers who are more experienced for 12 dives to get their 60 foot card, and so on for 100, 130, 150 and 190 feet. Most of what they learn after entry-level training comes from lunch time seminars, diving with the class, or in the mentoring process. And don't forget that in that world there is always a DSO there to backstop the mentors.

But all that aside, one of my points is that today with an instructor you DO NOT have a clear measure of the person's qualifications, else why all the threads on how to find a good instructor?

 

[Teamcasa]

So you'd bet on a good mentor, just as I would, eh?

Yes. Yes I would.

 

[boulderjohn]

But all that aside, one of my points is that today with an instructor you DO NOT have a clear measure of the person's qualifications, else why all the threads on how to find a good instructor?

"Good" in this case is a relative term. An instructor is good or poor (or whatever) in comparison with other instructors.

It is interesting to follow your apparent assertion that the average experienced diver is more likely to be a good teacher than the average instructor to its logical conclusion.

Every year all these horrible instructors around the world turn out thousands of totally incompetent divers, according to what we are reading here.

Give these horrible, incompetent divers a couple of years, and they suddenly become experienced Mentors with skills superior to the instructors who instructed them.

Let's say these now expert divers decide to become instructors. Something happens during the training process and suddenly they revert to outright incompetence.

It's an interesting transformational process, one worthy of study.

 

[Thalassamania]

"Good" in this case is a relative term. An instructor is good or poor (or whatever) in comparison with other instructors.

It is interesting to follow your apparent assertion that the average experienced diver is more likely to be a good teacher than the average instructor to its logical conclusion.

I don't believe that I said that.

Every year all these horrible instructors around the world turn out thousands of totally incompetent divers, according to what we are reading here.

Give these horrible, incompetent divers a couple of years, and they suddenly become experienced Mentors with skills superior to the instructors who instructed them.

I didn't say that either, but if you need to pursue that line of thought you might say, "give these horrible, incompetent divers a couple of years, of those few that do not drop out and somehow manage to get their act together slowly become reasonably capable Mentors with skills superior to the instructors who instructed them and who have also by now dropped out."

A reasonable case could be made for that.

Let's say these now expert divers decide to become instructors. Something happens during the training process and suddenly they revert to outright incompetence.

But they don't become Instructors, they all make more than minimum wage at their day jobs and don't want to spend their lives sweeping out the dive shop, filling tanks and singing the praises of whatever regulator is being SPIFFED this week. The ones who become instructors are, by and large, the true believers who were too stupid to see through the pyramid scheme, but they'll be gone in a couple of years.

It's an interesting transformational process, one worthy of study.

Study is good ... enjoy.

 

[boulderjohn]

I don't believe that I said that.

I believe you did.

I said that it is hard to tell an experienced diver who would be a good Mentor from an experienced diver who was a bad Mentor.

You said it is hard to judge a good instructor, too.

I quoted Runyon, and suggested that with an instructor, you at least had one measure of quality, but with the average experienced diver, you have only their word. Thus, although an experienced diver might be a better instructor than a certified instructor, the odds don't favor that.

You said the opposite, that the odds favored the experienced diver being a better teacher than a certified diver.

Or perhaps I misunderstood.

There are many, many thousands of experienced divers out there. Some of them make excellent Mentors. Most of them, by far, will not.

 

[Thalassamania]

There are many, many thousands of diving instructors out there. Some of them are good instructors. Most of them, by far, are not. - but then you knew I'd say that ... no?

The problem is that the instructor credential which used to really represent something has become fairly meaningless.

I'd say the same thing about learning from a mentor that I would about learning from an instructor, find a competent one. The same sorts of issues and questions revolve about both. It is likely harder to find a good mentor, because they teach what they want to, to whom they want; they are not for sale, so you not only have to select yourself, but you also need to be selected yourself.

 

[leapfrog]

Who's to say that a mentor does not have a syllabus?

Who's to say they do?

I wasn't saying that no one ever got disciplined, I was saying that the standard that they are enforcing is so low as to be almost meaningless.

Which standard are you referring to?

I doubt that you are the only one, but you're clearly not in the majority.

I don't think I've ever been in the majority.

I'm sure that I saw them in various adds and reports about the same time you did, and I don't get any of the PADI pubs that you mention. I likely found out about them at one of the dive show where lots of non-instructors also found out about them.

I found out about them because I was working as an instructor at a facility that wanted to be a step ahead, so I talked to a lot of manufacturers about where they were heading.

Tea bagging is going out and making the bare minimum dive in terms of depth and time with no objective other than raising your count to meet the requirements of a standard.

Well, I think we both agree that that is one the most stupid and absurd things that exists in diving.


You wrote: "7. In many walks of life there are people that think they know it better than the pros. I don't know one single guy who isn't a better football (or whatever sport you are into) coach than the guy on the field. So my take is that if someone really thinks that, why don't they train as a coach and start coaching high school footbll or the Little Leagues or whatever? That's more intellectually honest. Can your Dad take you to the park? Sure. Is he going to turn you into an NFL quaterback if you don't move on and get the right training and education?"

Maybe I'm the only guy you know who isn't a better football coach than the guy on the field; maybe I'm the only guy you know doesn't even know the rules of basketball, or hockey or soccer, or rugby, etc.; maybe I'm the only guy you know whose only real interest in baseball is statistical, but I know plenty of guys who are similar and make no pretense of expertise that they do not possess. But ... I am quite capable of coaching at rather a high level, in several other areas that do have extensive experience in. I was a nationally ranked fencer in college, I have taught my son to fence, for anything that he is going to encounter (below intercollegiate and Olympic fencing) there is little or nothing that a "real" coach will be able to do for him, my basics are strong and I can teach him the footwork and blade-work and conditioning drills that he needs (or for that matter everything that he should be concentrating on) up through the varsity high school or youth club levels. Now if he were some phenom, a nationally "A" rated fencer at 13, I would have to find him better coaching (which might be hard here on Hawaii). So why don't I go to all the coaching clinics on the mainland and open a studio? I'm not really that committed to it, that doesn't mean I could not do it, but making my living as a fencing master just isn't my gig. Similarly I've know (hell, I've trained) many, many fine divers who are also great diving mentors, far better than most instructors that you'd ever meet. But they have no interest in the BS of the field or paying dues, or carrying insurance, etc. They want to dive, and sometimes to be able to turn a relative or a friend on to diving and they do a fine job (I know because I often certified these "friends and family" under the experienced diver standards).

Thanks for this. Interesting and enlightening.

Except for the internet (and I didn't know I needed a license there) all the things that you mentioned are licensed so as to protect the public from the participants, not the participants from harm that they might do themselves by participating in the activity, that's quite different.

I think Government also wants to protect participants from the harm they may do themselves. Weaing a helmet on a motorcycle, obligatory use of seat belts and FAA control of DZs are all examples

I guess that you don't really understand the concept of a good checkout. Please reread my write up of my experience with Walt Hendrick the U of Puerto Rico.

Very well but I still want my money

 

[Thalassamania]

I think Government also wants to protect participants from the harm they may do themselves. Weaing a helmet on a motorcycle, obligatory use of seat belts and FAA control of DZs are all examples

Wearing a helmet on a motorcycle or a seatbelt is not something that the "government" is doing to protect you from yourself, it is something that society is doing because it is unreasonable to expect society, either through direct payment or increased insurance rates, to bear the costs of such injuries absent such protections. As to FAA control of DZs, they like to be in charge of things that fall out of the sky, and frankly I don't blame them. That's really just a "harbormaster" type of function anyway.

 

[DaleC]

You don't have to have an instructor to learn how to dive. You can be mentored and in turn mentor other people. The differences are the following:

4. We tend to be more on the cutting edge of where scuba is going, simply because we have access to more material such as training bulletins and many of us get to see "new developments" in equipment and training materials before non-pro level divers do.

8. By interacting with a greater number of students in different conditions, an instructor has a wider foundation with which to work than a friend who is a mentor.

I would disagree outright with 4 and 8.

4. An instructor teaches from a syllabus based on what has been approved and standardized in the past, not what is being projected in the future. Course material is usually lagging in what is considered cutting edge until there is repeated experimental proof of success or a demand from the mainstream. I would also think that instructors usually spend most dives doing the same basic things over and over and diving below their limits (with students) so they rarely get a chance to be "cutting edge".

8. I think an instructor may in fact have a smaller foundation as the majority of divers they meet will be beginners with little to no experience. By always being in the position of authority they may succumb to the notion that they "know it all" because they are not challenged by diving with equal or superior skilled divers. Big fish in a little pond syndrome.

Of course this does not apply to all instructors nor is it's effects limited to diving instruction. If it doesn't apply to you, don't take offense. I don't think one can make any hard and fast "catagories" that apply to mentors or instructors exclusively. Both will have participants falling somewhere on a scale between good and bad.