When are you an instructor?

[grazie42]

Here's another theoretical question related to the 165' concept. Let's say your teaching a group and there's one student who desperately wants to go deep. You just know that this person is going to push the limits as soon as they are on their own. Is it irresponsible as the instructor to take that student down to 50m after the certification rather than leave them on their own to try it, maybe with some other inexperienced dive buddy who may not have the same itch? Does "Just Say No" to deep diving for a novice work as a concept in practice? The thread about the father who took his son out too deep, ran out of air and didn't make it back up makes me wonder. Might it be better to take the diver down, let them feel a little of the effects of the nitrogen in a more controlled environment to build respect for depth, or maybe even get the bug out of their system entirely?

Im not sure how much room standards(depends on the agency obviously) leave for failing a student for "an unsafe attitude" but your hypothetical would propably be the ideal argument for it.

 

[ScubaSteve]

Here's another theoretical question related to the 165' concept. Let's say your teaching a group and there's one student who desperately wants to go deep. You just know that this person is going to push the limits as soon as they are on their own. Is it irresponsible as the instructor to take that student down to 50m after the certification rather than leave them on their own to try it, maybe with some other inexperienced dive buddy who may not have the same itch? Does "Just Say No" to deep diving for a novice work as a concept in practice? The thread about the father who took his son out too deep, ran out of air and didn't make it back up makes me wonder. Might it be better to take the diver down, let them feel a little of the effects of the nitrogen in a more controlled environment to build respect for depth, or maybe even get the bug out of their system entirely?

If somebody is a maverick as you described, then they will find a way somehow to get to 165' even if certification is not involved. A determined idiot is capable of huge things when cornered. I believe that certification should be reasonably objective....if you do this, you pass. If you do that, you fail. To add in the right of the instructor to interpret what they think somebody might do given the opportunity.....what if they misinterpret? I believe it needs to be as black and white as possible with certification. If you can do the skills, you get certified.

Also, you are assuming that this "person" would agree to stop once you took them to that depth. They would leave and say, "I survived 165' so there is nothing wrong with it" or assume they are then trained for it and push farther (my speculation only).

 

[Walter]

Going with a recent student as a dive buddy, though, should put some restrictions on where they might go.

I agree, but that applies to all divers, instructors or not.

Is it irresponsible as the instructor to take that student down to 50m after the certification rather than leave them on their own to try it, maybe with some other inexperienced dive buddy who may not have the same itch?

It's very irresponsible for a couple of reasons. It's likely that the instructor is not qualified to dive to that depth and the new diver certainly is not.

Does "Just Say No" to deep diving for a novice work as a concept in practice?

It's a horrible concept. If someone wants to dive that deep, they are going to do it. I would encourage them to work toward their goals by gaining experience making progressively deeper dives, gaining experience at each depth range before proceeding to the next and to get additional training in deep diving. There are safe ways to proceed, educate your students about them.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Here's another theoretical question related to the 165' concept. Let's say your teaching a group and there's one student who desperately wants to go deep. You just know that this person is going to push the limits as soon as they are on their own. Is it irresponsible as the instructor to take that student down to 50m after the certification rather than leave them on their own to try it, maybe with some other inexperienced dive buddy who may not have the same itch? Does "Just Say No" to deep diving for a novice work as a concept in practice? The thread about the father who took his son out too deep, ran out of air and didn't make it back up makes me wonder. Might it be better to take the diver down, let them feel a little of the effects of the nitrogen in a more controlled environment to build respect for depth, or maybe even get the bug out of their system entirely?

My answer would be no ... taking someone who isn't properly trained on a dive like that only serve to give them a false sense of how prepared they are to do that sort of dive. You're only setting them up for a behavior that could ultimately lead to both tragedy and liability. And as a recreational instructor, taking someone beyond the depths of their training would be cause for the agency to revoke your instructor credentials.

A couple years ago one of our local NAUI instructors took some of his students on a 200' bounce dive. They were diving one of our deep walls, that's accessible from shore ... and it was at night. There were six of them altogether, in three buddy teams. Some of them were on AL80's, others (including the instructor) on HP100's. One buddy in each team carried a 19 CF pony bottle. Three of the divers were very inexperienced (less than 20 dives), one was modestly experienced (maybe 50 dives), one had close to 200 dives and was a DM candidate, and the instructor. During the dive, one team bailed and went back to shore. The instructor and his dive buddy became separated when they hit the bottom (at 205 feet) and lost each other in the silt cloud. The other team hit their 200-foot depth and started back up when they noticed the separated buddy (one of the very inexperienced divers) sitting on the bottom looking rather comatose. One diver (the DM candidate) managed to dump his weights and send him on a buoyant ascent to the surface ... but because of the added time and effort that took, the rescuer ran out of air on his ascent and drowned ... they found his body in the mud at more than 200 feet about 10 months later. The instructor had already surfaced without his buddy. Needless to say, this is an aggregious example of how NOT to do it. The instructor was immediately sanctioned and permanently banned from NAUI. Personally, I feel that he should've been criminally prosecuted ... but that wasn't my call to make.

My idea of a "correct" approach would start with some training on the proper planning and execution of a deep dive ... including some gas management. I do this already for my AOW students before we take the deep dive required for that course (typically to 100 feet) ... and for the deep specialty class, which includes four progressively deeper dives that the student is responsible for planning. By the time they get to 130 feet, they have enough knowledge and experience to draw their own conclusions about whether or not they should consider going deeper than that. Personally, I won't take them deeper than that without more appropriate training. What they choose to do outside the class, and with a different dive buddy, is their own decision to make.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[Peter Guy]

Several posters have asked me to more fully develop my thoughts regarding "professionalism" and the "diving professional." OK.

To me, any "diving professional" (and here I go from DM through Instructor) should be a "model" for safe diving -- regardless of whether they are acting as a professional at the time or just being another diver. (BTW, this is even more true when they are with current students but NOT in the Teacher/Student role -- remember, in my particular case, this instructor WAS, AT THE TIME, my DM instructor even though we were on a trip together and not actively in the teacher/student situation -- he was still my instructor and we had been discussing the various roles of a "professional" since I was reading the DM manual during the trip. But I digress.) Thus I believe it is wrong for a "professional" to dive in an unsafe or unlawful manner regardless of the particular dive or to encourage either unsafe or unlawful acts.

Hmmmm -- I can hear someone thinking -- what happened here?

There were two things this particular instructor did (and I ran across a similar occurrence recently which led to an interesting "discussion" with another "diving professional"):

a. Mock, criticize and otherwise make fun of other divers doing pre-dive safety checks; and

b. Falsify required dive logs on the BOAT's dive log (this particular boat had a requirement that ALL divers log their dives on the boat's dive log).

I thought, and still believe, this was "unprofessional" and did not meet the standard an instructor must have. I also thought that IF this was what he really thought about diving, how could he teach me to be a "professional" in the diving arena?

It's interesting that people brought up gear -- as is so often the case, the gear issue is raised but is mostly irrelevant to how one dives -- as long as the gear works, who cares?

BTW, I did unload on another instructor/DM who made fun of me for doing a thorough pre-dive safety check (that is, making sure both regs were working, that my BC was inflating/deflating and that I had all my gear on properly -- in other words, a 60 second check) on another tropical dive. I told him, in no uncertain terms, that it was very unprofessional to mock people who do safety checks and that, to the contrary, he should have made a comment to the rest of the boat that THIS is the way it should be done.

You all, of course, are free to disagree with me.

 

[rstofer]

Hmmmm -- I can hear someone thinking -- what happened here?

There were two things this particular instructor did (and I ran across a similar occurrence recently which led to an interesting "discussion" with another "diving professional"):

a. Mock, criticize and otherwise make fun of other divers doing pre-dive safety checks; and

b. Falsify required dive logs on the BOAT's dive log (this particular boat had a requirement that ALL divers log their dives on the boat's dive log).

I thought, and still believe, this was "unprofessional" and did not meet the standard an instructor must have. I also thought that IF this was what he really thought about diving, how could he teach me to be a "professional" in the diving arena?

It's interesting that people brought up gear -- as is so often the case, the gear issue is raised but is mostly irrelevant to how one dives -- as long as the gear works, who cares?

BTW, I did unload on another instructor/DM who made fun of me for doing a thorough pre-dive safety check (that is, making sure both regs were working, that my BC was inflating/deflating and that I had all my gear on properly -- in other words, a 60 second check) on another tropical dive. I told him, in no uncertain terms, that it was very unprofessional to mock people who do safety checks and that, to the contrary, he should have made a comment to the rest of the boat that THIS is the way it should be done.

You all, of course, are free to disagree with me.

OK, I'll disagree even though I have no facts. Never stopped me before...

We have all seen the 'rock star' who wants to finish their latte' which the other divers get geared up. They then drag a$$ to the deck and while everyone else roasts in their wetsuits our 'rock star' diddles around eventually doing the mother of all equipment checks. I have been known to get a little hostile about this kind of thing! Still do...

It's all a matter of context and we don't have any.

As to falsifying the logs? What exactly was being suggested? Using AVERAGE depth instead of MAXIMUM depth because the maximum would violate the NDL? Again, we don't really have the facts of the situation. But falsifying records will get you fired just about everywhere. It's a really bad idea.

I can't really defend the instructor's behavior, I wasn't there. But we're really only getting one side of the story. I'd like to hear the other. Still, it could just turn out to be a really bad day for an instructor. It happens...

FWIW, I would expect a DM candidate to be the first to be geared up and ready to go. In this case, I can't imagine the equipment check even being mentioned. It would be done before the other divers even had their BCs clamped to the tank.

By nature, I'm not a patient person. With a 7mm wetsuit, I find myself even less so. When it's time to go, it's time to go!

Richard