Standards deficiencies

[raybo]

Rick Murchison once bubbled...
WoW! :wow: Now that's a shocker! When I got my original certification (YMCA), there were two - "Scuba Diver" and "Instructor." Trying to compare what we got in that course to today's offerings is difficult, but we had a good bit of today's Rescue Diver course, air decompression diving, all sorts of strength and stamina stuff, lots of air shutoffs & mask ripoffs & such, buddy breathing, spearfishing... we didn't get anything in the way of BC's or safe seconds 'cause those didn't exist. But "Scuba Diver" was a real accomplishment.
Rick

Don't confuse the Y program "Scuba Diver" with what Mike is referring to. Big difference

According to Walter's post above, sounds like the Y program is still pretty in depth and comprhensive.

Like you. buddy breathing was the "you take a breath, I take a breath" method, on a J valve. I just can't remember what we had for BC, but I think horse collars. Evrything done and done again till you could do it in the dark.

Didn't scare me away, and apparently not you and a lot of others either. I really have a hard time buying the party line rhetoric that you can't teach that way effectively anymore.

If it walks like a dollar, and quacks like a dollar, real good chance it's a dollar, if you get my drift.

 

[Doc Intrepid]

and make way for the Future of Diving!! :wacko:

From "Immersed", winter 2002, pg 16, comes this gem:

"NEW CERTIFICATION AGENCY --
European Scuba Agency, a new scuba training and certification organization based in Rome, launched its programs at the Diving Equipment & Marketing Association (DEMA) show this fall in Las Vegas, Nevada. Course material that the Italian agency presented at DEMA was geared to simplifying training for adults and children. Four-page pamphlets summed up diving skills in comic form, with no explanation of the science and physiology of diving to confuse students. For information, visit www.esaweb.net".

You all sound like the next crop of geezers ready to retire to your rockers on the fantail and grouch about how much better it was "in the old days".

Y'all need to get with the future! If it can't be summed up in a non-verbal four-page comic, its obviously too confusing for scuba students.

Just ponder the possibilities!

Doc

 

[detroit diver]

Doc Intrepid once bubbled...
and make way for the Future of Diving!! :wacko:

From "Immersed", winter 2002, pg 16, comes this gem:

"NEW CERTIFICATION AGENCY --
European Scuba Agency, a new scuba training and certification organization based in Rome, launched its programs at the Diving Equipment & Marketing Association (DEMA) show this fall in Las Vegas, Nevada. Course material that the Italian agency presented at DEMA was geared to simplifying training for adults and children. Four-page pamphlets summed up diving skills in comic form, with no explanation of the science and physiology of diving to confuse students. For information, visit www.esaweb.net".

You all sound like the next crop of geezers ready to retire to your rockers on the fantail and grouch about how much better it was "in the old days".

Y'all need to get with the future! If it can't be summed up in a non-verbal four-page comic, its obviously too confusing for scuba students.

Just ponder the possibilities!

Doc

I just went to that site. Although I don't read the language ( I think it's Italian), I think you get a "Smile Diver" card when finished!

 

[Diver0001]

Walter once bubbled...
<snip>

The longer, more in depth classes work and they work well. You need another excuse for your approach, your current excuse doesn't hold up to examination.

<snip>

:whack: <gritting teeth> I'll avoid flaming you back. You should, however, ask yourself if it's wise for a monitor on a montored forum to be flaming people. If you ask me it sets a poor example.

I would like to go into what you alluded to, however. I can see from your pattern of posting that you have a bone to pick with what you see as "dumbing down" and instructors who you don't see as working hard to put the quality into the training where the system falls too short. (I'm summarizing you, not paraphrasing but feel free to but a nuance on this if you want).

I'm much more positive about the PADI system than you are. On the whole I think it works. However, we do agree with one another, at least in part. I've heard a lot over the last months about what you think is wrong with the PADI system. Now let me say what I think is wrong:

One of the problems I see with the "first things first" approach to the theory is that students won't have enough of a helicoptor level view of the material to appreciate why they are being told what they are being told and to remember it and put it in the right context. You might, for example have a student who remembers that they need to make a safety stop at the end of a dive but can't remember why. In terms of the standards as long as they remember to do the safety stop the "why" doesn't matter. This is about where your blood starts to boil and I agree. A good instructor will be aware of this and will compensate but the system does fall short in this way. A good example was Raybo's comment in this thread that he would like to have a cursory idea of deco-theory. In fact, he does. He knows about N2 takeup and washout (surface intervals); he knows the deeper the shorter and why (more pressure more N2 in your ssystem); he knows how to find his limits; he knows to ascend slowly and do safety stops to avoid DCS, he has some idea of the physiological effects of DCS etc. The problem is that it wasn't presented to him in a way that makes him aware that all of these things stem out of deco-theory and how it all fits together. And because of this any new information he hears will take longer to sink in and so on. You can think of many such examples. Buddy skills is another. Everyone learns buddy skills. AAS, OOA, Signing, lost buddy protocol, keeping buddy contact under water etc etc. The problem is, again, that it isn't presented as a "module" as it were on buddy-skills whereby students don't make the connections between all of these skills/tasks and the roll you have as a buddy. Is this a problem? Yes. Absolutely. This is problem number 2 in the PADI system if you ask me.

Offering a more thorough treatment of the mainline theory would help this to some extent but will definitely take longer. Your take is then, "so what?, take longer then". I would agree but one of the things that a PADI instructor can't do very easily is to re-write the book because of their personal opinions or preferences. In a sense if you agree to teach the system then you have to keep more or less to the system. Exceeding standards is possible (and very desireable) in terms of quality (making Raybo aware that certain things all stem out of deco theory) but in terms of quantity they don't want it. You have some room to manoeuvre/deviate but apparently not as much as teachers at the Y (which I'm sure you will point out makes the Y a better programme). In particular, PADI doesn't like "task loading" or making students think that they need to learn and/or do things that aren't in the curriculum in order to pass the course. For example, an OWD needs to hover in mid water for 1 min to pass the buoyancy skill. Upside down. Buddha position. Horizontal. Diagonal. Curled up in a ball..... it doesn't matter. Hovering is hovering as long as it's not flapping, finning, surfacing or bottoming out. 1 min. Does it have to be beautiful? No. If an instructor insists that his students do it for 2 min then he's out of the book. If he wants it done in buddha pose then he's out of the book. What you CAN do, if someone passes the skill and offer them a challenge. If you think a student *can* do it for 2 min in Buddha position then why not get him/her to try it? That's not outside the book as long as they understand that they've already done it well enough. Another example that I read in another thread was the mask drill. There was an instructor who wanted his students doing the mask clearing drill while hovering. It's a good idea but it's also task loading. If a student can't do it like this then you can't fail them. Likewise if they replace the mask but blow the hover then you have to pass them. You can fail them for the mask skill when they can't do it sitting on their knees. The problem (getting to the point) is this: The standard says at least 1 min of hovering. If someone hovers for 58 seconds is it good enough? How about for 55? How about 55 seconds of good hovering and 5 seconds of flapping and finning? How about 59 seconds of good hovering and then slightly touching the bottom with the tip of one fin? For many instructors 58 seconds (or less) is good enough. 59 with a slight find touché definitely. In your posts you often moan about the dive skills of PADI divers. This stems, if you ask me, out of two things. (1) that the standards are sometimes not strict enough and (2) some instructors are not strict enough about enforcing the standards. This is problem #3 in the PADI system. For example, I personally believe that your buoyancy control (I believe this is the most important skill) has been learned when you an hover for as long as you like. If you struggle to keep it going for 1 min and then crash to the bottom at 62 seconds then it's good enough for PADI and you have to pass them. In this sense, I believe that the standard is lacking. LIkewise an instructor who passes a student who hovered for 59 seconds is lacking. The students deserve more commitment than that.

Which brings us to problem number 1 in the PADI system. Quality control. If PADI were to ask a student who hovered for 58 seconds if he was made to hover for at least 1 min what would he say? Probably "yes". Do you recall how long you hovered in your OW course? I don't. I couldn't care less now but I was "Mr. Yo-Yo Man" when I got certified and I can't imagine that I did it for a minute. Looking back I would be surprised if it was longer than 30 seconds..... but the instructor let me get away with it and I was a certified yo-yo. This shouldn't happen. If PADI had asked me "were you made to hover for at least 1 min" I would have said yes, partly because the question would have made me think that I must have done it long enough (afterall you trust your instructor) and partly because of a slight embarrassment I felt about having poor buoyancy control and the worry that I would personally get in trouble for saying no. I can't be that different than many other people and that makes me think that the entire system that PADI uses to gather quality control data is fundamentally screwd up. You can see this in the large body of anecdotal evidence that PADI seems to largely discount. I can't shake any wise and easy solutions out of my sleeve but what I can discern is that the present quality-contol system isn't up to the job and a lot of PADI instructors are getting away with very sloppy work. Maybe part of the solution is to get IDC's to fulfill a direct evaluation roll and to cross-control each other. If anything is going to keep you sharp it's having your competitor watching over your shoulder. If everybody does it in the right spirit it might be very helpful. Another thing that might help is to change the experience standards. Say, for example, that an OW diver needed to make his first 10 dives with a DM, that AOW started at dive 25 and that Rescue started at dive 50 and covered a discussion about accident stats. You could also add a couple of "theory specialties" that could be applied to the DM course, like "DCS theory" (including a pot dive), "Physics theory" (including some nice lab demos) and Physiology theory to the programme. That might help keep the number of poorly skilled DM's and Instructors down by spreading out the theory and moving it up in the programme for students who are more interested.

R..

 

[wb416]

Diver0001 once bubbled...
..... If you think a student *can* do it for 2 min in Buddha position then why not get him/her to try it? That's not outside the book as long as they understand that they've already done it well enough. ....
R..

Can someone explain to me what the buddha hover has what-so-ever to do with diving?

Wouldn't it be more practical to have them hovering in a flat trim position? Ya know... Law of Primacy.

 

[WreckWriter]

Diver0001 once bubbled...
Another thing that might help is to change the experience standards. Say, for example, that an OW diver needed to make his first 10 dives with a DM, that AOW started at dive 25 and that Rescue started at dive 50 and covered a discussion about accident stats. You could also add a couple of "theory specialties" that could be applied to the DM course, like "DCS theory" (including a pot dive), "Physics theory" (including some nice lab demos) and Physiology theory to the programme. That might help keep the number of poorly skilled DM's and Instructors down by spreading out the theory and moving it up in the programme for students who are more interested.

R..

In my opinion this is the biggest problem in the industry and the number 1 reason there are so many bad divers. I think you set the bar a bit too low though. I'd go for 50 dives for AOW, 100 for Rescue (if not eliminate it and put it in AOW), 300 for DM and 500 for OWSI. After OWSI, 50 dives in specialty for any specialty instructor card.

No Course Directors with less than 1000 dives over a period of at least 10 years.

WW

 

[raybo]

my point

Diver0001 once bubbled...

A good example was Raybo's comment in this thread that he would like to have a cursory idea of deco-theory. In fact, he does. He knows about N2 takeup and washout (surface intervals); he knows the deeper the shorter and why (more pressure more N2 in your ssystem); he knows how to find his limits; he knows to ascend slowly and do safety stops to avoid DCS, he has some idea of the physiological effects of DCS etc. The problem is that it wasn't presented to him in a way that makes him aware that all of these things stem out of deco-theory and how it all fits together. And because of this any new information he hears will take longer to sink in and so on.

I want to clear any miconception. I WAS taught deco theory, and the gas laws, and how to use the equations, and partial pressures, and oxygen toxicity, and gas mixing, and how to use the Navy Deco tables if I had to, and how all of those things affect the body.

And know what? It didn't take too long to "sink in"! But it didn't happen in a weekend either. It used to take a little commitment, and that meant some time. About 30-40 hrs of class, and almost as much pool.

I was taught those things at 13~14 years old in a YMCA SCUBA DIVER program.

I expected to see that stuff in a PADI course. But it's just simply not there. You reference the dumbing down of the PADI program. Face it ~ it has!

My point is that this stuff is germain to the activity of scuba diving. I find the argument that it's too much to expect new divers to be able take in somewhat of an insult to the intelligence of a lot of prospective divers.

Now if you just want to say "our instructors & shops find this method to be the one that allow us to certify the most divers at a reasonable price and is the one we think is most economically effective for the tye of divers we train"~ fine.

But don't proffer that crap that the general public is somehow not capable of digesting the material the should know. I don't buy it.

Based on a lot of the posts I see by PADI instructors, you've all either been brainwashed into believing the party line, or you haven't been around long enough to have seen what good training was like.

I do think there are a lot of good PADI instructors. I also understand the economics of the situation. Americans are into instant gratification without any effort. I know you can't do anything about that. Don't think that is your responsibiblity to change, or even try to.

But face up to the reality that this has, without question, dumbed down the certification process. Not only PADI, either, I'm sure. I can only speak from the personal experience of the Y & PADI programs.

To reiterate, my suggestions goes not to things I wanted more info on, but rather to info that I had previously been taught, and found to be very important, but lacking. Big difference between "curious" and stating it's just blatantly missing now.

Mike Ferrara mentioned that PADI has a "scubs Diver that requires supervision.

Guess my suggestion for the progression would go something like

PADI ~Scuba Diver ~only dive with supervision
PADI-F ~ fundamental skill development in a currently non-exisitng class.
Then maybe OW.

Don't even go to the PADI AOW program. That's a joke. It requires very little "advanced" skills or experience. To me, the AOW ought to be tough eough that a large percentage don't make it on the first try.

If it's a good program, it's not going to be easy.

 

[Big-t-2538]

WreckWriter once bubbled...


In my opinion this is the biggest problem in the industry and the number 1 reason there are so many bad divers. I think you set the bar a bit too low though. I'd go for 50 dives for AOW, 100 for Rescue (if not eliminate it and put it in AOW), 300 for DM and 500 for OWSI. After OWSI, 50 dives in specialty for any specialty instructor card.

No Course Directors with less than 1000 dives over a period of at least 10 years.

WW

I agree and disagree with some of these.....

I really think it depends on where you are making dives...Currently I'm a DM and I don't have 100 dives...does that mean I'm qualified to make a dive to 120 feet and penetrate a wreck...no...not at all...do I think I'm qualified and experienced enough to take divers around a well known area...yes...do I feel comfortable assisting with check-out dives...yes, etc.

Some people need to make a boatload more dives to obtain an experience level or in many cases, common sense level, to be in a leasership or "responsible" position.

I think number of dive standards are irrelevant...the standard bar is too low I agree, but the skills abilities are what is too low IMHO. Any idiot can make 300 dives with a DM on charter boats and learn nothing....not everyone takes the intiative to learn more about diving make strides towards making themselves a better and safer diver.

 

[Conor]

There are things that I would have liked to learn in my OW that I didn't, but there also quite a few things that weren't in the books for my Ow and AOW that my instructors taught me.

Having said that I am trying to understand the level of understanding DCI that you feel is required for an OW qualification. I was/ am a chemist with a Medical/medicinal focus, I have a good understanding of the physics of Gas behaviour under pressure. I have tutored people in physical chemistry and although the aim is for people to reach a thorough understanding of the behaviour to the point at which they can predict the behaviour in systems they haven't encountered sometimes people just can't get there and just have to learn the formulae etc. My point is should people need to know the formula or the basics of what that signifies ? Is it more important that a diver performs a safety stop or that he knows why a safety stop should be performed?


FYI I have both the BSAC Sports diver (apparently rescue diver equivalent) and the PADI OW manuals at home, there is not really that much difference in content, just the number of formulae.

 

[MikeFerrara]

Some good posts by Diver0001 and raybo I think.

PADI defines performance requirements for each skill like the example used of a 1 min hover. However, there are some catch alls in the standards such as the requirement for divers to exibit good buoyancy control on each training dive. This is a rather subjective requirement but allows an instructor room to hold a student back if they need to. On the other hand if the student managed to pull off their 1 min hover to meet that requirement it is documented and maybe the instructor passes the student even if the student panicked and bolted to the surface at 1 min 5 sec. It's a double edged sword. It gives the "good" instructor room to work while giving the "bad" instructor a way to call the job finished. No system will eliminate the need for an instructor with good judgement, however, the standards could IMO be improved to give the "bad" instructor less wiggle room simply by rephrasing the performance requirements.

We should understand something else also. The skill set required of an OWD has not beed reduced because it is thought too much for a student to grasp. It troubles me to see that some instructors believe this to be true. The process has been streamlined to allow divers to dive sooner. The idea is to give them only what they need to know when they need to know it. Reducing the required skills (in theory) allows you to also reduce the time required to master them. The PADI system is designed to allow a student to do their first OW dive the very day they begin training. This is a sales issue.

It works like this...A customer walks in and asks about learning to dive. Why? Because they want to go diving not do 3 weeks of phisical training and swimming without scuba or go hame and read reams of material. What does the system allow? We can review some essential info off a flip chart or video then hop in the pool and do the first confined water session (module 1) which consists of real basic stuff like clearing a reg, mask and a few other very basic skills. Now I can take the diver for OW dive 1. Bottom line is the diver can be on the reef the very day they first inquire about diving. This can be done as a resort course and if the proper documentation is completed the diver can receive credit for CW 1 and OW 1 toward their OW cert. The idea is to provide immediate gratification. The customer wants to dive so you take him diving. The design of the system has little to do with what the student CAN grasp at this stage but rather what MUST be grasped to meet the time table of getting on the reef today.

Now...some my students may spend 15 hours in the pool before they get near an OW site but the same system is intended to work for the student who is going to do their first OW dive on DAY ONE. That is why the info and skills presented at this stage are chosen the way they are.

IMO, It is proven that this system can be use to get someone in the water fast and safely. IMO, the system is failing the divers who dive outside a certain environment and truely want to learn to be capable divers.

Trust me in that I would have been doing a different kind of diving far sooner if I would have known it existed. That's the other thing this system does. The system, IMO, can isolate a diver such that they don't know to what level diving can be taken. That's what I meant earlier when I said we have underwater tourists being trained by underwater tourists with no divers around. People can get in the water very fast but they will not know what they don't know. Part of the info I include in my class is there specifically so student will know about the world outside the progression of the PADI educational system.

If a guy walks in the door of my shop and tells me he is a long time dry caver who needs to learn to cave dive in order to continue his real passion (cave exploration), I will recommend a far different path than I would for a divers who's goal is to see every tropical reef above 100 ft in the world. If the reef diver and the cave diver both take the same first class will bothe be equally prepared for their planned next step. I say no and they should be. The OW course should prepare a diver for any reasonable next step. Let's rephrase the question to eliminate the extreme of cave diving. Is the reef diver a a diver who aspires to dive Lake michigan wrecks off of Millwaukee diver(where they live equally prepared) or a Gilboa. Again I say no. they have both been prepared to dive warm water under some degree of supervission. they both know enought to safely follow a good DM or drop down and look at a reef that SOMEONE ELSE has chosen for it's convenience and diver freindliness. Underwater tourism not diving.

Let's back up. What became of the cave diver wanabe? He had to go back and learn the fundimentals that someone decided he didn't need to know. try teaching an IANTD Advanced nitrox class to an average recreational DM. You have to go back and start at the beginning because they are NOT prepared for their chosen next step. This is why it is reported that instructors dont do better in a DIRF that other. It's because they were all tought the same thing and even teaching it doesn't make you better at something different.

I used to think the budda hover was an admiral thing to be able to do. While it may look good on a video taken in a pool it has nothing to do with diveing or preparing a diver for whatever their first step is.

the SINGLE thing that was the most difficult about my own dive education was finding out what I needed to know and where I needed to go to learn it. Way too much of my time was wasted because SOMEONE else decided I was goin to be a reef diver when I never had any intention of that myselfe.

My students will not be cheated so because they have a choice a because I don't hide the rest of the diving world from them.