Jay,
Thanks for the recommendation, but I will admit I am not the instructor for everyone, as my teaching style doesn't match everyone's needs and my goals for my students don't necessarily line up with students (example: they just want to look at pretty fish and don't care about trim, buoyancy, and maximizing dive time).
Here's a little blurb that I've saved for people interested in getting into scuba diving (for other instructors who read this, I'm always open for feedback, as this is intended to help all students).
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If a student wishes to maximize her or his benefit from early training (open water and advanced open water certification), it is important that the student interviews prospective instructors to find a good match in terms of personality and teaching methods.
In order to facilitate this process for the teaching methods, there are a couple of books and websites that I highly recommend (I also recommend them to instructors who pursue excellence as an instructor).
The books I recommend are by James (Jim) Lapenta for open water and advanced open water courses:
https://www.amazon.com/SCUBA-Practical-Guide-New-Diver-ebook/dp/B00I9K2KW4/
https://www.amazon.com/SCUBA-Practical-Advanced-Training-Adavanced-ebook/dp/B01N3UDHLT/
The online resources I recommend are by Harry Averill (a.k.a. Cave Diver Harry) and Andy Davis. Both are generous with publishing top notch training. Their respective websites/blogs are found here:
Cave Diver Harry
Technical Diving Articles | Techniques | Knowledgebase
For those who seek true excellence in diving in the skills they develop, I recommend that students look for instructors with strong tech backgrounds and/or ones that have gone through GUE Fundamentals, UTD Essentials, or ISE Basics of Exploration or are certified for cave diving. The reason that I recommend instructors with such a background is they have pursued excellence in their own diving, as these are some of the most difficult courses a diver can take. Students who take these courses find that they have the result of dramatically improved diving skills. And that translates to an instructor who can help a new diver to have the appropriate foundation of skills from which he or she can grow rapidly.
While people like Andy Davis, Jim Lapenta, and Harry Averill are not accessible to everyone, there are a number of other instructors who look at how to teach at the highest possible level. Look for them. Students may recommend other instructors, but honestly, while they have good intentions, they honestly don't know what makes a good instructor. It wasn't until I became an instructor that I realized how many standards violations occurred during many of my courses. Through my own pursuit of excellence as an instructor, I learned about better methods for teachings as I started with a number of shortcomings myself, and I'm still growing. I will be a better instructor in one year than I am today. Unfortunately I've learned that many instructors are mediocre. Fortunately, there are so many instructors who are excellent but it requires some work by the student to find them.
