A controversial concept, but maybe a good one.

[bent]

I had a student that took full trimix with me in 1997. He didn't pass the class initially, and he had to come back and take it again before he passed.

He died in 2011 or 2010 from complications due to DCS after a dive in a deep cave.

Is this my fault?

Yes. Every time I get a speeding ticket it is completely the fault of my driving education instructor

Of course not and nobody said that. You guys must know, better than I do, that there are some instructors who let very crappy divers pass and that there is a pattern. When I see someboby got trained by X I know he/she must be good couse otherwise they wouldn't have passed, with instrutor Y I know it's a mixed bag, they might be good or horrible. There is no way you guys don't know any X-type and Y-type instructors.

[JohnAd]

Of course not and nobody said that. You guys must know, better than I do, that there are some instructors who let very crappy divers pass and that there is a pattern. When I see somebody got trained by X I know he/she must be good couse otherwise they wouldn't have passed, with instructor Y I know it's a mixed bag, they might be good or horrible. There is no way you guys don't know any X-type and Y-type instructors.

When I as a school district administrator, I was assigned the task of becoming an expert on teacher evaluation so I could participate in a leadership role in redesigning our teacher evaluation system. I attended a national conference on teacher evaluation, and a presenter talked about this exact thing during a presentation on the different ways of determining which teachers were competent and which teachers weren't. A common attitude you hear in school districts is that everyone in a school knows who the good teachers are and who the bad teachers are, so why can't we find a simple way to measure and report it?

According to the presenter, studies have conclusively shown that the "everyone knows it" method is by far the LEAST accurate. Some of the teachers with the best reputations are among the worst, and vice versa. People develop reputations in a lot of ways, but if you actually go into the classroom and see them at work, if you look carefully at the results in student achievement, you may find out that those reputations do not hold up.

[MichaelAngelo]

BTW, if anyone starts selling cave clay pottery because they think that's a brilliant idea after reading my above comment, I'd like a new coffee mug.

You got it.

[mgif99]

As already mentioned a couple of times, the sample size is just way too small. There (luckily) aren't near enough cave diving deaths to get a meaningful distribution.

[bent]

I have not said to go by any 'everybody knows system'.

Some of the teachers with the best reputations are among the worst, and vice versa.

I went to school too. There were good and bad teachers... and the bad once where not good (as your story suggests), they were incompetent and should have been fired... but teachers over here can't be fired as they are government employees. This has nothing to do with dive training or anything in this thread.

Being a good diver can be measured objectively for the most part. Having a stundent die and getting a new instructor rating the week after is an objective observation as well. Telling people that diving unknown circuits is objectively bad too.

Bringing up Sheck or 12 year olds learning math is a red herring.

There is point in making up examples and inaccurate comparisons when you can talk about the topic at hand.

[tflaris]

Reminds me of a FB Conversation recently with a similar topic.


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[MarkR]

As already mentioned a couple of times, the sample size is just way too small. There (luckily) aren't near enough cave diving deaths to get a meaningful distribution.

That is true, but I would add another point..

We have far too little DATA on "near miss" type events. I can think of only a few brave souls who have been very generous in sharing a detailed account of their nearly fatal incident.

Honestly, I think there's a gold mine of accident analysis out there if more would share it. And this applies to both gear failures and human/training errors.

[cerich]

BTW, if anyone starts selling cave clay pottery because they think that's a brilliant idea after reading my above comment, I'd like a new coffee mug.

It is a brilliant idea..

[chrpai]

When I as a school district administrator, I was assigned the task of becoming an expert on teacher evaluation so I could participate in a leadership role in redesigning our teacher evaluation system. I attended a national conference on teacher evaluation, and a presenter talked about this exact thing during a presentation on the different ways of determining which teachers were competent and which teachers weren't. A common attitude you hear in school districts is that everyone in a school knows who the good teachers are and who the bad teachers are, so why can't we find a simple way to measure and report it?

According to the presenter, studies have conclusively shown that the "everyone knows it" method is by far the LEAST accurate. Some of the teachers with the best reputations are among the worst, and vice versa. People develop reputations in a lot of ways, but if you actually go into the classroom and see them at work, if you look carefully at the results in student achievement, you may find out that those reputations do not hold up.

The part that caught my attention was "student achievement (results)". Seems to me that we don't even measure / report that beyond "you got the card". Most agencies recognize instructor achievement by how many certs they have issued.

I frequently dive with new OW divers to help introduce them to local diving and help them stay active. I've learned that if they were taught by certain instructors that the dive is going to be drama free.

My first tech instructor's final debrief ended with him telling me that he trusted me and that he would sleep soundly at night. I hope I can say the same every single time if I ever become an instructor.

[cerich]

I know you guys are all thankful that I don't post much anymore. And I'll try to keep it that way. But a discussion with a cave instructor this morning led to a great idea we think he had. Of course, proposal of said idea would probably bring a bunch of criticism. I don't really care about criticism, so I said I'd post it.

What if cave society and prospective new cave divers had a list of instructors that not only had their length of cave instruction but also listed the number of graduated students who have died in cave diving. Say you've been teaching cave diving for less than 6 years but have already had 3+ students die while cave diving. Maybe it shows a trend in either poor instruction or an inability to weed out a poor state of mind in a diver.

Worst case, it allows people thinking about entering the sport to evaluate whether they want a guy known for student deaths to be their instructor.

Whatcha think?

Isn't that how we choose training directors already? 😎😋

That was a joke folks.. some of you can take a deep breath and stop thinking I was talking about you