Has anyone NOT passed their OW?

[FinnMom]

I've been involved with our club's traing maybe 8 yrs. Never seem someone fail but I'm sure it's possible.

We do dive training (CMAS) as a club, so we will work with you all summer if need be. A few people who really can't do it (usually can't get calmed down about something) loose interest in trying before we loose interest in helping them learn. Maybe in colder water it's easier to decide it wasn't fun enough to put in the effort, or maybe if it's just not you're thing it's a an easy decision to throw in the towel. But these folks all decided to quit, they were not failed.

A few persons have failed to certified (to finish training) because health problems arose that never went away, or that made them decide to error on the safe side and not become a diver. We have time for health problems to arise because we start the theory/pool portion in Feb or March and do open water dives in May and June.

We've had a couple young adults/late teens (males) who didn't seem to plan on learning anything/doing anything or even showing up for arranged dives etc. Luckily we have a few big, ugly, scary guys in the training group and have been able to get these delightful types back on the same page w/ everyone else. One of these guys grew out of his attitude, the other certified and was never seen in the water again -not considered a great loss. Guys like these would definetely have failed if they had not decided to get their **** together.

 

[drbill]

Back in the days when OW classes were weeks long (and sometimes an entire semester at a college) people did indeed fail them. And people who have not "mastered" the skills necessary to be a decent diver SHOULD fail the class. Not referring to you of course but to assume EVERYONE will pass a class just because they paid for it seems to pose an unwarranted danger to the rest of us divers IMHO.

 

[boulderjohn]

Not referring to you of course but to assume EVERYONE will pass a class just because they paid for it seems to pose an unwarranted danger to the rest of us divers IMHO.

This is an oft-repeated meme that is completely false. You don't pass the class because you paid for it, you pass the class because you demonstrated mastery of the skills, no matter how long it took for you to accomplish it. What you paid for was the skill of the instructor who is able to teach you in such a way that you were able to be successful, no matter how you struggled to achieve that success.

I read an interesting article a while back that recalled this controversy back in the 1960s. Quite a few of the instructors in those days came from the military, and they treated their classes like boot camps. According to this article, many instructors bragged about how very hard it was to pass their classes, using their high failure rates as an indication of how high their standards were. They had the right according to their agencies to make their course standards as tough as they wanted them to be, and some of them made them look like Navy Seal team training. (Okay, some exaggerations there.)

This attitude is a complete contradiction of educational theory. If a curriculum and the standards for passing it are within the ability levels of the students entering the program, then any student who works diligently should pass the course, assuming proper instruction. If a large number of students who have the required entrance abilities and who are working diligently are failing, that is a red flag for very poor instruction. There were significant battles between instructors and agencies over this concept, and it is thankfully rare today to find instructors finding glory in being unable to teach effectively.

 

[FinnMom]

Back in the days when OW classes were weeks long (and sometimes an entire semester at a college) people did indeed fail them. And people who have not "mastered" the skills necessary to be a decent diver SHOULD fail the class. Not referring to you of course but to assume EVERYONE will pass a class just because they paid for it seems to pose an unwarranted danger to the rest of us divers IMHO.

I thonk you may have misunderstood my semantics: My "quit" is the same as your "fail" but a different flavor. No one is certified until they have demonstrated the knowledge and the skills they need to dive safely not just in openwater, but in our cold, poor-vis waters. I'm sorry if I failed to make this clear.
The difference we have is that while the normal class would end in June, a student who hasn't progressed at the normal rate could find instructors willing to work with him most of the summer. We have club dives once a week, thru Aug or Sept. At least 1 instructor could make a point of being available at any of those, he/she might likely have planned to go anyway.

Those that quit trying to learn are never certified because they did not earn it. Someone who exibits no interest in additional training towards certification or no apparent willingness to put in the required effort will fail in the classic manner. These guys are not certified, nor are the perfectly good stidents who just never completed the required open water dives for medical, employment or whatever other reasons.

 

[drbill]

Based on my 52+ years of observations in the world of SCUBA, I'd have to disagree with you. I've seen divers who IMHO never should have received certification. Not necessarily a high number, but enough that they can pose problems. Heck, I even had one SCUBA "instructor" certified by an agency come to Belize to take my place as the marine biologist/underwater videographer on Lindblad Expeditions. This individual demonstrated that she was barely able to function: couldn't put the strap on her own personal mask, assembled her tank with the BCD 90 degrees off, lacked basic buoyancy skills and crashed into a large table coral breaking off about a third of it, dropped a $7,000 camera rig over the wall at Lighthouse Reef and on the second dive she couldn't even descend so she followed us on a drift dive while on the surface. And this was a certified instructor!

Good instructors will not pass a student unless they demonstrate the skills. However, demonstrating them in class is not always the same as mastering them and being able to perform them routinely. And there are (quite frankly) some lousy instructors out there as well. Fortunately, they are in the minority.

Yes, back in the 60s I finally took an OW certification class (after diving for 7 years prior to that). The instructor was an ex Marine who made me drop on all fours and kicked me in the ass when I questioned some of the statements in training from a scientific perspective. Howevber, he was a great instructor and drilled the skills into me.

This is an oft-repeated meme that is completely false. You don't pass the class because you paid for it, you pass the class because you demonstrated mastery of the skills, no matter how long it took for you to accomplish it. What you paid for was the skill of the instructor who is able to teach you in such a way that you were able to be successful, no matter how you struggled to achieve that success.

I read an interesting article a while back that recalled this controversy back in the 1960s. Quite a few of the instructors in those days came from the military, and they treated their classes like boot camps. According to this article, many instructors bragged about how very hard it was to pass their classes, using their high failure rates as an indication of how high their standards were. They had the right according to their agencies to make their course standards as tough as they wanted them to be, and some of them made them look like Navy Seal team training. (Okay, some exaggerations there.)

This attitude is a complete contradiction of educational theory. If a curriculum and the standards for passing it are within the ability levels of the students entering the program, then any student who works diligently should pass the course, assuming proper instruction. If a large number of students who have the required entrance abilities and who are working diligently are failing, that is a red flag for very poor instruction. There were significant battles between instructors and agencies over this concept, and it is thankfully rare today to find instructors finding glory in being unable to teach effectively.

---------- Post added April 12th, 2015 at 10:32 AM ----------

My comments were not in response to your post. I have a feeling training over in Europe may have a higher standard.

I thonk you may have misunderstood my semantics:

 

[boulderjohn]

Based on my 52+ years of observations in the world of SCUBA, I'd have to disagree with you. I've seen divers who IMHO never should have received certification.

I never said that there are not divers who have been certified who did not deserve to be certified. There are instructors all over the world certifying people who have not deserved it. As I have said several times in the past, my nice was certified a few years ago with one 2 hour pool session and one OW dive to a depth of 10 feet. It happens. It is a violation of standards, but it happens.

It has always happened. You had an ex-marine who kicked you butt. Does that man all people in the 1960s had ex-marines who kicked their butts? When NAUI founder and instructor #1 Al Tillman wrote his history of NAUI (the agency started in 1960), he said they had a problem because of their policy of sending certification cards to the instructor based on student registration forms, not completion forms. That was because the instructors wanted to be able to hand the students their cards as soon as they were done. As a result, he said, they struggled with what to do about the knowledge that many students were getting the cards without completing the class. In fact, he said, they knew some people got their cards without doing a blessed thing.

My cousin got certified in the early 1960s by the salesman at the shop who sold him the gear, following verbal instructions that were little more than "don't hold your breath."

So, yes, some students today get certified without earning that certification, and it is against the rules when it happens. Some students in the 1960s got certified without earning that certification, and it was against the rules when it happened.

 

[Oldbear]

When I conduct the Confined Water Dives one of the forst things we talk about are dive skills. I use the new PADI Dive a Planning & Dive a Skills slate (I am a PADI Instructor ) right from the beginning. We talk about the different skills and how they are progressive in nature. Then we make a student-instructor pact; I will ensure they are compendant in performing their skill and the student will ensure they are comfortable in performing their skill. For most students who have been challenging as an instructor the comfort part is slightly behind the compendant. Maybe I am naive but I like to think most instructors are instructing because they want to share diving with others and want to certify good compendant divers, for the level of their training, who are comfortable with themselves.

I have had a few that could not get the comfort part down and they have not passed the course...yet. One I have been waiting for 6 months to come back so we could do some one-on-one in the pool to build her comfort level. She was signed off in Hawaii by a well named shop and needed her Open Water Referral dives. She came to me for a skills review and then onto her Open Water dives. She participated in the class sessions and did quit well. But I was totally surprised when what I thought was going to be a skills review for her (as the other students did their Confine Water Dives) turned into panic and she excused herself when we did our first underwater breathing skill. She IS NOT comfortable and I don't know if she ever will be. I tell her husband that this needs to be her decision and she had to want this. I will be here when or if she is ready. It has been a great pleasure watching her husband grow as a newly certified diver into an advanced skilled diver, so I am hopeful that this couple eventually gets to share diving together.

 

[CT-Rich]

I failed an assistant instructor course in college (1983). I was taking the course in college and my classmates were supposed to master all the skills and we were tested at the end of the class. I did everything great, but we were only allowed 2 tries to swim the length of the Olympic sized pool underwater with no gear. I could do it but when test day came I had a raging sinus infection and couldn't do it on test day. I got a good grade in the class, but never got the C-card. In retrospect, a pretty stupid reason to deny me the certification, but I never wanted to be an AI anyway, and I changed colleges the next year. At the time I took the instructor's assertion about the course criteria as gospel, but looking back I am not sure. Anyone know if that was policy for an AI class in 1983 or was it bunk? I don't recall the agency. Otherwise the class was very good.

 

[Germie]

People who quit an ow course (I don't say fail) are the people who have never been 'waterfree', they are still afraid of being in the water.

If your instructor says you need a little bit more time, but all goes well, then you won't fail. Sometimes I do that too with people. It must be safe and not be fast.

 

[Storker]

I have a feeling training over in Europe may have a higher standard.

Albeit based on a limited dataset, I have a feeling that training in Northern Europe may have a higher standard. I've seen South European divers - and also North European divers certified in warm water on this side of the pond - who showed many of the 'traits' you guys attribute to vacation resort divers on your side of the pond.

In addition to agency standards, there may be national standards for dive training. A PADI OW course in Norway requires six open water dives, of which the two last should be planned and executed by the student, with the instructor just supervising the dives. That's a national requirement which PADI has to follow to be allowed to certify people around here. Of course, that leads to more expensive classes, which again leads to novice divers taking their certs in warm-water destinations. After which they may - or hopefully may not - try their hand at diving at home...