Was this comment right?

[Progen]

So I was on a boat with two instructor trainers and a dude on his IDC. I overheard what appeared to be the lead trainer giving a comment to the trainee that he shouldn't have asked the other trainer who was posing as student to repeat skills which she seemed to be able to demonstrate reasonably well because time is money and he'll be encountering more than one student in most situations.

Is this SDI's official stand or just another flaw in the mass production with virtually zero concern tendencies that is so worrying?

Was I look at it, the trainee was just being a perfectionist and asked for a skill repeat in the event that he might be able to tweak or had missed out something.

 

[Wookie]

The student must be able to perform the skills. The instructor candidate needs to perform the skills demonstration quality. Sometimes in the heat of the moment, the candidate asks for demonstration quality skills from the "student" because they (the candidate) are flustered. Also, the IT will often give the "student" a flub on their skill, as in, failure to clear the mask fully, or the mask fills back up after clearing. In that case, the candidate must catch the skill failure, correct the failure, and ask for a do-over.

I don't see what the IT told the candidate as a failure, the requirements for a student (perform the skill) are way less than the candidate (demonstrate the skill).

It is over the top to ask an OW student to be perfect when completion of the skill is enough. Obviously, there are times when it's OK to look like a newb, especially when you are one.

 

[crosshairs]

So I was on a boat with two instructor trainers and a dude on his IDC. I overheard what appeared to be the lead trainer giving a comment to the trainee that he shouldn't have asked the other trainer who was posing as student to repeat skills which she seemed to be able to demonstrate reasonably well because time is money and he'll be encountering more than one student in most situations.

Pretty much what Wookie said....looking for perfection in an OW student will keep you in the water much longer than necessary and will more than likely turn off the student.
If they can perform the skill reasonably well and not be in any danger, move on to the next one....perfection will come from them actually diving, and not from them kneeling in front of you acting like a trained monkey

 

[WB2GLP]

[video=youtube;8Moh7DXMk8g]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Moh7DXMk8g[/video]

 

[Jim Lapenta]

If any of my IT's had told me time is money I'd have gotten a new IT. I have to wonder if that is just a shop position. I don't expect perfection from a new student but do expect them to be proficient before I take them to open water. So they can certainly expect me to ask them to clear a mask on every dive at different points during the dive under different task loading. Another reason I'm an independent. I decide what is more important in the time vs money thing.

 

[boulderjohn]

I am not sure I understood the situation perfectly. If I understood things correctly, the trainer pretending to be a student performed the skill satisfactorily and the student instructor asked for it to be repeated anyway. He was told not to do that. Is that correct?

If I am sure the student has performed the skill well enough to meet a standard, I move on. I only ask for a repeat if there is a problem with what the student did or if I think the student did it but not well enough for me to believe it was mastered well enough to be sure it is going to be successfully repeated.

A lot of skills are repeated many times, and the student will get progressively better with each instance. Let's take mask clearing. In the agency in which I teach, the student in the pool will make a partial mask clear, a full mask clear, remove and replace the mask, then take the mask off, swim a while, and put it back on. In the open water, the student will do a partial mask clear, a full mask clear, another mask clear, and a remove and replace. That is the minimum for a student who does it well every time. I am not going to make a student who does the first partial clear very well repeat it.

 

[Progen]

If any of my IT's had told me time is money I'd have gotten a new IT. I have to wonder if that is just a shop position. I don't expect perfection from a new student but do expect them to be proficient before I take them to open water. So they can certainly expect me to ask them to clear a mask on every dive at different points during the dive under different task loading. Another reason I'm an independent. I decide what is more important in the time vs money thing.

That's was what I had in mind plus (I sense a lot of flames coming my way) the way I look at it, the reason why there are hundreds of thousands of inept divers worldwide is because they thought that being able to perform a skill once, kneeling down, just after a demonstration and which they were prepared for, would mean that they were ready to go anywhere in the world and not need to worry about anything. That's precisely the kind of thinking that leads to overconfidence and every now and then, overconfidence leads to death.

When I took my recreational sidemount specialty, the instructor would swim over at random and get us to either accept air or share with him. That drilled into us (me for sure), the importance of having the 2nd stage clipped off nicely but accessible, how to hand it over properly (we were taught not to cup the purge but to hold it by the hose or bolt) and long hose tucked away neatly but ready to deploy to full length at any time.

And to reinforce my stand, there's this friend of mine whom I had recommended to take the Open Water course. I was on a solo dive nearby that day and so did not see how well (or not) she had performed the skills in the confined water section BUT she actually failed to perform quite a few of the latter skills on the second day, had her certification postponed, went back for another full day with other students 2 weeks later but still failed miserably. Now the point is considering that she had gotten through the first day, it must have been by luck because until today, which is getting close to a month, she still cannot perform most of the skills. Had she been lucky on the second day too, this person would have been certified, gone diving somewhere, left a trail of destruction and probably drowned herself or her buddy. There's a HUGE difference between being able to perform a skill parrot style and actually understanding the skill's necessity and being able to perform it smoothly. Perhaps I shouldn't have used the term 'perfectionist' in my original post because after all, how many of us are or can be perfect?

 

[abyss_scuba]

I am not a current SDI instructor but I can tell you this is what is wrong with our industry and how we have created a niche for independent instructors. I currently have a woman who wnats to quit my class, not because it is too hard but because of other self esteem issues ( no I am not a psychiatrist, nor do I play one but I have been teaching long enough to know). I will work with this woman as long as it takes to make her feel comfortable. Hopefully she will gain from this experience and take it forward into other areas of her life. I will feel good as a person altruistic somewhat but as a business man I will also have gained a customer for life. As a business I don't want the quick sale I want the long term relationship that comes from doing well by people, people are not stupid and know when you genuielly care for them. I don't want to sell just to you I want to sell to your kids, your friends , your family. I do this by making you an ally.Time is money I have the time my customers have the money. Is it so hard to do the right thing?

 

[Kharon]

Any cert is a learners permit. You need to be able to demonstrate that you understand the skills required and demonstrate that you can perform them. You then spend the rest of your diving days trying to perfect those skills.

 

[boulderjohn]

That's was what I had in mind plus (I sense a lot of flames coming my way) the way I look at it, the reason why there are hundreds of thousands of inept divers worldwide is because they thought that being able to perform a skill once, kneeling down, just after a demonstration and which they were prepared for, would mean that they were ready to go anywhere in the world and not need to worry about anything.

What agency certifies divers who have only cleared their masks one time while kneeling? This is the SDI forum--is that an SDI policy?