Atticus:
Mike - you make some very good points about comfort/ability in the water vs. skill demonstration. How would you suggest an agency word their standards such that an instructor following that agencies rules would "have to" produce better divers? I think a lot of recreational instructors believe they are following their agencies standards and feel they are wrong if they require more (specifically I'm referring to some of the PADI threads discussing instructor reprimands for not granting certification despite a student having done the required skill demonstrations). Please don't take this as a PADI bash - that is simply the most direct example I could think of.
There are a couple of parts to my answer to this. First off, you're right, in that once a student meets the agencies requirements they should recieve the agencies certification. Anything else is misleading. So first lets just address teaching to the existing standards because that's what an instructor has to work with. My discussion is based on PADI standards bcause I'm familiar with them and not because I want to single them out. Lets take some specific skills to illustrate. A student is required to swim 10 meters neutral in CW 3 and hover for 30 seconds in CW 4. These are the stated preformance requirements so you can head for OW with students only having been off the bottom for about a minute and a half. In OW they are required to hover in dive 4 but there's no time limit so it amounts to having to get off the bottom at some time during dive 4. There's nothing in the standards preventing the practice of neutral buoyancy. In fact, the standards encourage time for fun and practice. Since diving is about 99% swimming around neutral, do youthink it might be of use to spend more than a minute and a half off the bottom during open water training? Since CW is for learning the skills and OW is for gaining experience, does it make sense to require students to be diving at all times during the OW dives? Just as an example, take a look at the IANTD skill evaluation form. Basic dive skills...bc, finning technique, buddy skills ect are to be assessed on every dive in every class.
Now lets look at how classes are sometimes taught. A few hours in the pool doing skills while kneeling and 4 open water dives where the dives only need be 20 minutes long and most of that time is often spent doing skills kneeling or kneeling waiting your turn to do skills. When does the student dive? Not every one teaches that way but the shops who certify the most divers do. I know because I've watched them do it.
Standards don't prevent you from practicing mask removal and hovering at the same time or practicing neutral swimming only using your fins for locomotion and maintaining a horizontal position. Why not require it? It could get much better without adding a single skill.
I used to think that PADI expected instructors to know this stuff and just do it. However, take a look at other aspects of the standards. You can conduct OW dive 1 right after CW dive 1. You can't require students to "dive" on dive 1 because they don't start learning to get neutral until CW 3 and you can't move skills between modules. PADI demonstratably does not intend for students to be able to swim neutrally buoyant on dive 1. What they do intend is that the OW course meshes with the experience programs so students can be given OW course credit. Marketing.
ok, so there you have topics and skills that are currently included in the class but students aren't actually required to demonstrate them to any meaningful level of proficiency.
Lets look at gas management. What the text lacks is self explainatory. Trim? Totally absent. The fact is that if you explain the mechanics of trim including how equipment and body position are used to control it they don't have all that much trouble doing it. Give them some time in CW putting it togetther and everything else goes much easier and by the time they're in OW they're really diving. On the other hand I'd argue that without understanding the mechanics they can't really ever learn to dive no matter how many other classes they take. That's why we see AOW students sitting in the mud tieing knots for their S&R dive. What does that prove? How about buddy skills. Sure they share air a couple of times but can they stay together during a free descent or ascent? Can they keep track of a buddy while they clear their mask midwater? Are these things they may have to do on their very first dive after certification? Why don't we make sure they can do it before we certify them? Are the lack of these skills real world problems on real dives? How often do we see or hear of divers being seperated during ascents and descents? I think we should expect it because they weren't ever taught the skills they need to avoid it. They don't get it in any other class either.
If I were going to design an OW class there isn't anything in the PADI standards that I would keep. I know the text is well organized and has pretty pictures and that the standards are well organized and easy to follow. The content is just so screwed up that I don't see the point. I was a PADI instructor and by the time I put a class together that I thought worked pretty well I was only using PADI materials to make sure I was still legal. I had to re-learn everything they taught me about diving or teaching. Again, I was a PADI instructor so I use them as an example but I don't see where any of the other agencies are very different. We start out assuming it's correct because it's all weve seen, I think. I know I did but fighting the same problems over and over finally got me to let go of some of my assumptions. Once I did that, the fix for some of those problems became obvious.
We could also look at some individual skills and what's fundimentally wrong with the way they're taught but maybe I'll save that for another time.
