| Articles Recognising a good instructor
when you meet one.
In the good old days training
was conducted in a military manner. Barked orders and stern reprimands were the methodology of
the day. Thankfully a more laid back approach to training is now
pervasive. However, an instructor who is the life and soul of the party and the
student's best friend may not be doing their job either. How do you identify a good
instructor? Your real focus should be on teaching ability and style. Here's some
pointers on what to look for:-
People skills.
The
first thing that you should find is that your instructor is easy to speak to.
You should feel comfortable asking questions. A good teacher won't spend
classroom time standing still, reading notes. They will interact with the
trainees and make eye contact. They should be patient with "dumb" questions and
clumsy performance.
Individual attention.
Ask
how the instructor will handle it if you have problems learning a task.
They should understand that people
learn at different rates and should offer to spend extra time if it's required
to master a skill. If they reply to by saying "Don't worry, you won't have
any problems." Then they're letting their ego get in the way.
Empathy.
The good
instructor understands that it's reasonable for new students to have some fears
- whether they are justified or not and will reassure them rather than heightens fears by telling
'war stories' about terrors of the deep. Anyone instructor who peppers his
conversations with anecdotes of this nature is again more interested in his ego
than in you.
Experience.
Good teachers
are not made in a day. For how many years has he been an instructor? An
assistant instructor? A divemaster? A diver? Does your instructor seem to teach
from his own experiences or does he regurgitate the course manual?
Organization.
The class
should keep moving without irrelevant digression. The instructor should be
following a lesson plan which is fun but structured. The aims and
objectives of which should be clear to you at the start and finish of each
classroom session.
Punctuality.
The
instructor should show up on time and prepared to start the class. He should end
on time too, and not early. Avoid any instructor who appears to over enjoy
partying. Nothing should be more important to them than
teaching you skills on which your life will depend and for which you are paying
them to teach.
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The following are also worth
enquiring about when considering which dive school you should choose:-
Class size.
How many
students per instructor will there be on your course. A maximum of 6-8 is
plenty. Any more, you may spend too much time
hanging around, waiting and receive too little individual attention.
An assistant instructor.
If the class is large will there be an assistant instructor on hand to help out
without holding up the class?
Lots of water time.
You
learn by doing, not by reading about it. Make sure you check that an Open Water
Diver course contains the PADI required four open-water dives. It's also
well worth finding out where you will be diving, are the four dives in the same
location? Or are they in different dive sites?
A fair price.
How much
does it cost, and are there any extras such as purchasing PADI manuals
etc.? Price shouldn't be your
primary concern (you'll find most dive schools offer similar prices), but one course may be cheaper than another.
However, if you have any
doubts about the instructor or the school then taking a cheaper course to
save a few hundred baht is definitely a false economy. An excellent instructor
and enjoyable diving experience are always worth the price.
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