DevonDiver
N/A
Flots sounds like a champion of apathy. Just walk on by fella...nothing to see here....why should I get involved...
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Jim:
Thank you for your usual open and honest posts. The current practices you describe are not just in Western PA. We are seeing more and more such incidents almost everywhere. E-learning, and one day classes, dumbing down of instruction, all this has been producing more and more divers who are unsafe, insecure on their own, and will drop out sooner rather than later.
I hope these poorly trained divers will drop out before they harm themselves or others.
On this board we are fortunate to have a number of ethical and competent instructors: Yourself, NWGD, Trace, Walter, NetDoc, and others.
I do hope this distributing trend is reaching an end point.
it sounds like it would be very hard to take them down since it dosent seem like they are doing anything illegal. If they aren't directly taking money for training people would it count as fraud apart from in the obvious ethical way?
The fact is that up until now someone has been doing them. Why they stopped I don't know. Maybe they moved or got caught but it did not stop the DM's from doing what they are doing. PADI has no idea if the instructor issuing the card is actually training the person. It is my problem in that he came to me to issue a cert and I am now personally aware of the situation. Up until this point I had heard rumors I could not personally verify. That is no longer the case. I may not have a legal obligation to do anything but I do have a very strong moral and ethical obligation to do whatever I can to stop this and protect those who may be hurt (including the agency and school) by the actions of these people. I will be contacting PADI on Monday as well as the school district. The industry is doing enough to shoot itself in the foot without help from those who for all intents and purposes are outside of it. For me that is enough for me to take action. My conscience is my guide. As it should be every professionals. Every one knows I am no fan of some of PADI's actions but I am not going to see them hurt over something they had no idea of until the lawsuit hits.
After that call I spoke to another instructor who has a shop doing one day courses and sending the students with a referral to him for checkouts. Right after that I spoke with another owner who informed me a shop north of here is giving away classes. But they are selling a $250 gift card they can use towards the purchase of overpriced gear. But these free classes do not include a certification or checkout dives. They need to buy a $75 PADI manual, given a quick classroom session and a couple pool sessions. They are then told they need to go to another shop to get a card and do a "couple" checkout dives. WTF is going on and why?
It is nationwide and it has become worse as the economy has gone south and some agencies and some of their instructors are looking for revenue without regard to minimum standards to insure a newly certified diver can actually dive.
Do you think you could even begin to fly a plane solo with a one day course?
Diving is not flying, I know; But it is not something, IMO, that can be learned in a very short course taught in a very short time.