What does it take to be a cave instructor? A cave Instructor Trainer?

[CCRMichael]

One of the things I love about becoming a cave instructor is you have to work with more than one instructor trainer. Most agencies you have to do that to become and OW instructor and then for all of the more advanced training you only have to work with one IT. With 2 ITs you learn more and it is harder to cut corners. I wish more of the levels were like the cave instructor internship program. I learned so much during mine and was glad I had the opportunity to work with multiple ITs.


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[cerich]

to be clear, with the agencies you list in your sig. you needed to work with two cave It's, where as with other tech specialties to teach you only need to work with one IT.

I'm only asking because I am a instr for one of those agencies (not cave, but tech) and thought the cave process was the same as the other tech programs...

NAUI you work with a NAUI Tech Workshop CD for doing tech(including cave), and there is only the Workshop CD, for recreational even as a CD I need another NAUI Instr on staff to teach and certify a recreational Instructor. Not so for tech, as a Tech Workshop CD I can do it all by my lonesome.

I see(and enjoy) the business reasons, honestly as a Instructor I also see there being too much room for people to avoid a good system of checks and balances. While i have confidence that many tech CD's will do their very best, there are cases where that simply hasn't happened. It leaves too much room for the good old boy network in our small industry.

One of the things I love about becoming a cave instructor is you have to work with more than one instructor trainer. Most agencies you have to do that to become and OW instructor and then for all of the more advanced training you only have to work with one IT. With 2 ITs you learn more and it is harder to cut corners. I wish more of the levels were like the cave instructor internship program. I learned so much during mine and was glad I had the opportunity to work with multiple ITs.


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[kwinter]

Maybe defining what it takes to be a good instructor is like trying to define pornography. You know it when you see it. Because in 6 pages of posts I have read very few that address anything about teaching. Maybe mine is an unpopular view, but I think there are (at least) 2 separate yet equally important traits that a good instructor must possess.

1. A mastery and overwhelming comfort with the material. To be a cave diving instructor, one should be an excellent cave diver, comfortable with all of the technical skills. Being able to demonstrate good technique, knowing when to use various skills and when not to, and knowing your own limitations and respecting them. These are all signs of someone who has mastered the skills necessary to be a good cave diver. But it does not necessarily make someone a good instructor.

2. The ability to convey that knowledge and comfort level to someone who is essentially ignorant of the skills and ill-at-ease with the environment, and to honestly and critically assess the student's level of mastery. This is essentially the definition of instructing in any field. The instructor is at-ease with the material and the student may be ill-at-ease. And through various teaching methods, repetition and evaluation, the instructor imparts the knowledge and experience to the student to accomplish the goal. This goes beyond mere demonstration or statement of the standards because the instructor must also have a good understanding of why the standards exist as they are and the reasons we do things in a particular way in order to impart that understanding to the student, rather than a rote skill. This is the component I see as most lacking in instructors, and I think it is also the reason the decline in teaching that Jim mentioned is so evident.

I have had plenty of instructors who knew their stuff and could demonstrate it well (both diving and non-diving), but could not teach their way out of a paper bag or explain why things were done a certain way. I have also seen instructors who were less than proficient in their own ability to perform the skills, but understood them fully and could explain them very well to students. Neither situation is good, but I think there is more promise in the second type than the first.

Students come in all types. Some are theoretical learners that need to understand why and will figure out the how by themselves. Others just want to see how and don't really care about why. Instructors need to be flexible in their teaching styles to match the learning style of the student, not the other way around. More focus needs to be placed on teaching people how to teach. I am a teacher by profession, but I have never been a scuba instructor. I have seen some OW "instructor training" and have seen very little time and effort devoted to the teaching aspect. I don't know if the CDS equivalent is any different.

I'll climb down from the soapbox now because this is a never-ending argument I have had in all sorts of fields for years.

[Jim Wyatt]

I'll climb down from the soapbox now because this is a never-ending argument I have had in all sorts of fields for years.

I think your analysis is spot on.

[Superlyte27]

Maybe defining what it takes to be a good instructor is like trying to define pornography. You know it when you see it. Because in 6 pages of posts I have read very few that address anything about teaching. Maybe mine is an unpopular view, but I think there are (at least) 2 separate yet equally important traits that a good instructor must possess.

1. A mastery and overwhelming comfort with the material. To be a cave diving instructor, one should be an excellent cave diver, comfortable with all of the technical skills. Being able to demonstrate good technique, knowing when to use various skills and when not to, and knowing your own limitations and respecting them. These are all signs of someone who has mastered the skills necessary to be a good cave diver. But it does not necessarily make someone a good instructor.

2. The ability to convey that knowledge and comfort level to someone who is essentially ignorant of the skills and ill-at-ease with the environment, and to honestly and critically assess the student's level of mastery. This is essentially the definition of instructing in any field. The instructor is at-ease with the material and the student may be ill-at-ease. And through various teaching methods, repetition and evaluation, the instructor imparts the knowledge and experience to the student to accomplish the goal. This goes beyond mere demonstration or statement of the standards because the instructor must also have a good understanding of why the standards exist as they are and the reasons we do things in a particular way in order to impart that understanding to the student, rather than a rote skill. This is the component I see as most lacking in instructors, and I think it is also the reason the decline in teaching that Jim mentioned is so evident.

I have had plenty of instructors who knew their stuff and could demonstrate it well (both diving and non-diving), but could not teach their way out of a paper bag or explain why things were done a certain way. I have also seen instructors who were less than proficient in their own ability to perform the skills, but understood them fully and could explain them very well to students. Neither situation is good, but I think there is more promise in the second type than the first.

Students come in all types. Some are theoretical learners that need to understand why and will figure out the how by themselves. Others just want to see how and don't really care about why. Instructors need to be flexible in their teaching styles to match the learning style of the student, not the other way around. More focus needs to be placed on teaching people how to teach. I am a teacher by profession, but I have never been a scuba instructor. I have seen some OW "instructor training" and have seen very little time and effort devoted to the teaching aspect. I don't know if the CDS equivalent is any different.

I'll climb down from the soapbox now because this is a never-ending argument I have had in all sorts of fields for years.

I think you exactly hit the nail on the head. Very good post. Thank you for writing it.

[kensuf]

While i have confidence that many tech CD's will do their very best, there are cases where that simply hasn't happened. It leaves too much room for the good old boy network in our small industry.

Your Cave 1 CD and I were chatting about this at some length this past fall.. He told me about having seen a tech instructor trainer/cd (agency omitted) using indirect supervision for a technical deep wreck class -- how the hell is that within standards? It ain't.. And this guy that was conducting it was supposedly an IT/CD.

[MORGAN]

I think there are (at least) 2 separate yet equally important traits that a good instructor must possess.

1. A mastery and overwhelming comfort with the material.

2. The ability to convey that knowledge and comfort level to someone who is essentially ignorant of the skills and ill-at-ease with the environment, and to honestly and critically assess the student's level of mastery.

I'll climb down from the soapbox now because this is a never-ending argument I have had in all sorts of fields for years.

Very well said. Doing something well and teaching it well are two separate skill sets, and a good instructor needs to combine them.

Mike

[cerich]

There's another aspect to this as well. Both he (my cave cd) and I believe that it's good to step up, gaining experience along the way. So to us it makes sense a new cave instructor would be a cave 1 instructor for some time, then become a cave 2 instructor down the road after time and experience as a cave 1 instructor. I have the same idea as a CD for OW Tech. Well, it's kinda amazing how many potential instructor students DON'T want to "earn their stripes" following the old time tested time, practice and experience route. We both have contact with a bunch of potential students for instructor level courses that once told they need to first teach cave 1 (cave) or Tech Nitrox/Deco/Helitrox (ow tech) then get some experience teaching at that level and come back after having taught a couple dozen classes at those levels to then move on...they move on alright to another CD that will allow them to teach the full monty out of the gate! Now it's strange but somehow students of instructors with this attitude also tend top just keep rushing along without gaining experience along the way in the never ending quest for more and more cards to collect. The essential problem is that we as instructors should embrace the collection of dives, experience and mentoring as being equally important as formal training in the development of our students.

By the way folks, let me spill one more dirty secret...there are QUITE a few Instructors that give lip service to making a course be challenging, difficult and with learning as the goal versus certification that in practice do NOT actually teach a challenging or dificult class at all and have virtually never "failed" a student (as in the student did not get certified, I would argue that any Tech/Cave Instructor who has never failed a student has indeed been failing them, in a LARGE way). The issue here is they tell people they will be getting the bestest course, then the muppet takes said bestest course and passes learning SFA and because the muppet knows not what he does not know, now thinks they ran the gauntlet and only thru their personal superior ability and skill (Skip could explain why this works so well with the majority of types attracted to this activity but is too much of a gentleman to do so) and the supernatural ability of their instructor to make the difficult easy (BS- the instructor is really not challenging the student, no challenge no growth) they were able to walk thru the shadow of death with nary a scratch. This actually leads to more students for said instructor because the muppet that is delusional is exactly that...delusional. He is now the best salesman for their SUPER DUPER CAVE MASKED AVENGER instructor....

Your Cave 1 CD and I were chatting about this at some length this past fall.. He told me about having seen a tech instructor trainer/cd (agency omitted) using indirect supervision for a technical deep wreck class -- how the hell is that within standards? It ain't.. And this guy that was conducting it was supposedly an IT/CD.

[cerich]

I love the whiteboard so much that I write business plans on them..it's kinda sad really. It's the best way to express myself.

Yup!

I may be a Luddite, but just like there's no substitute for time in the water, there's no substitute for time in the classroom, interacting directly with the teacher. I'm not a dive instructor, but have done a lot of teaching. (fire/rescue/EMS & emergency/critical care nursing) I think I'm the only guy left at my hospital who teaches on a white board and seldom uses powerpoint. Sometimes I even pull out my "Weapon of Mass Instruction" - the old Kodak Carousel slide projector.

Mike

[LCF]

I think kwinter's post is spot-on. Having taken a bewildering number of technical and cave classes from instructors from an alphabet soup of agencies, I've seen good teaching and I've seen pure evaluation, and I have heard of but not, thank goodness, personally experienced virtual harassment in the name of "a quality, challenging class". (Can you come up with any reason why a tech class should involve bringing a team of three up from technical depths with two functioning posts among them?)

In my mind, a good cave instructor course should not only leave the new instructor with a strong sense of what appropriate passing standards are, it should also leave him with the belief that it is his JOB to figure out how to bring the student to those standards, if it is at all possible to do so, and give him some tools to get that job done. Being a good cave diver, or even a superb diver and accomplished explorer, does not make you a teacher.