Your Job Description

Some years ago, I trained instructors for a fellow named Rick Ashley. At the time, Rick operated two dive stores in the San Francisco Bay area. I lived in Florida, so I would fly to San Francisco several times each year to conduct these courses.

During one visit, Rick asked me to sit in on one of his instructor meetings. When the staff had assembled, Rick went to the white board at the front of the classroom and wrote the following:

It’s interesting to note that, while Rick was not an instructor himself, he understood this essential truth better than any of the people who taught for him.

The Restaurant Analogy

When you eat at an established, reputable restaurant, there are two things you assume going in:

• You won’t get food poisoning.
• The food won’t be so bad as to make you vomit.

Imagine, however, if this was how restaurants promoted themselves. You know: “Eat at Joes. You won’t get food poisoning and the food won’t make you vomit.” Boy, that really makes me want to dine out. How about you?

Fortunately, restaurants know that what diners are really interested in is does the food taste good?

How does this apply to diver training? Students at any level of training have a right to assume two things:

• Your course will give them the opportunity to learn the essential knowledge and skills.
• Assuming they pay attention and follow directions, they most likely won’t drown.

This much should be a given. However, if this is all you do as an instructor, you’ve failed. Miserably.

Why? Because students don’t sign up for scuba classes because they want to learn to dive. They sign up for scuba classes because they want to have fun.

Did You Do Your Job?

The real test of whether you’ve done your job as a professional diving educator is not whether your students mastered the necessary knowledge and skills — or even whether they survived the experience. These two things should be a given. Instead, it’s:

• Did your students learn how to have fun under water, and…
• …did they have fun doing so?

Unless you can answer both these questions with an enthusiastic Yes, you’ve got some work to do. In the articles you’ll find throughout the balance of this section, we’ll show you how.

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