The Great Dive Podcast

Episode 185 – Is Certification Really Necessary?

10/9/2020

While mourning the loss of Rock Guitar Legend Eddie Van Halen, the boys came across a discussion about the validity and necessity of dive certifications. If the certification is the identification of skill mastery, why is there still an obvious lack of ability on the dive sites? This post started a large thread and many interesting points, Jamesy and Brando take a look at both sides of this very deep discussion.

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2 Comments

Lance

10/12/2020 03:32:16 pm

Was not really with you guys on many of your thoughts tonight. You expressed the idea that in order to be a good instructor you had to be a great diver, I’m not sure the skill set of diving and instructing are as interchangeable as you suggest. If I were to follow your idea to natural conclusions than to be a good high school math teacher you would have to be a great and accomplished mathematician. That is simply not true. Those that can’t....teach or as the saying goes. One does not have to be an accomplished tech diver to teach basic OW effectively. Does a professor of business have to be an accomplished businessman, obviously no. Teaching and doing are somewhat different skill sets.

Brando link

10/12/2020 06:24:44 pm

Hi Lance,
First & foremost, thanks a ton for listening and the feedback!! It's very much appreciated. We love getting feedback whether you agree or disagree and to be honest, if we're not getting some disagreement, we're not doing it right...;-)
So maybe I came off wrong on the podcast but I'm not calling for the instructors to be "great and accomplished" (if I did say that, I apologize ...to be honest, James did the edit this week and I have not listened to the podcast... not a fan of my voice and I just enjoy the conversing over diving topics...:-) ..) I think a better way to say what I think is I would like to see instructors be "adequate and experienced". I also would add that I do believe we said that we both agree that being a "tech-diver" has nothing to do with becoming or even being a good recreational instructor. I think our whole point was to educate the general public when seeking open water instruction... if you desire quality instruction, the instructor you seek should have an adequate resume to have the ability to speak from experience. The minimum experience to become an instructor is nothing less than a joke and it's evident whenever we go to a dive site with open water classes and the instructors cannot assemble equipment properly, maintain trim, buoyancy, stay off the bottom, be aware of their environment, maintain control of their students, and often times I cannot discern who is the instructor and who is the student. So I do agree that to teach a scuba class, one does not need to be a super diver... I believe they do need more than 100 open water dives and they should be in varying environments and the course to become an instructor should be more than just a class to show standards and legalities to keep from being sued. I know in the circles we run, we are all experienced divers... 20 years + for many... I'm in my 35th year myself, we're all current or former recreational instructors at least and we all agree on these points. Maybe we'll have to agree to disagree, but I believe when it comes to diving, it's true that you can be a very good diver and not a good teacher, but I do not believe the inverse is true.... IOW, being a bad diver but good teacher will not produce good results... students emulate their teachers... the thing is they (the students) don't know any better.
Thanks again for the feedback Lance! If ya would like some Great Dive Podcast stickers, we'd love to get some out to you... just reply with your address and we'll drop some in the mail..:-)

Safe Diving.

Best,
Brando (& Ol' Jamesy)
ps.... Jamesy and I will be on the "A Dram of Diving" live broadcast on Wednesday (Oct 14 2020) at 7:30 pm EDT where we (and some more industry professionals) will be discussing "Rapid Descent to The Bottom: Low cost, Low Value, Shorter, Larger Classes Destroying the Sport." I am sure it will dip into this region of discussion speaking to quality of instructors and the minimum requirement being at the root cause of the decline in quality and numbers for scuba... check it out on Facebook.... do a search for Dram of Diving and you should be able to come across it.

Episode 185 – Is Certification Really Necessary?