In the Open Watercourse I took with PADI. I list of "skills" to perform in order to complete that segment, or dive. The tests asked specific questions which required specific answers. I would have to state, thought that I did get the feeling that very few people actually "Fail" the course. I did have to re do some of the skills till I got it right. So I guess with this long winded statement, is "what does successfully completed" mean? The point to your secret standards
I've been teaching scuba diving since 1989 and not one student has ever asked to see my instructor C-card nor has a student ever asked to see the course requirements.
The first thing I do in my AOW course after I complete skill evaluation dives and do 2 or 3 dives in which I get the students dialed in with buoyancy, trim and basic technical diving skills is to do a navigation dive and "correct" their heading to get them hopelessly lost. Then I chew them out for trusting me and not asking to see my renewed C-card and my liability insurance card. I'll have to add the course standards to this first beating... or, maybe I should keep them secret as I am now?
As a PDIC instructor, my materials tell me the basic standards the students need to meet. They are in my book for each course. Students can ask to see them and I would gladly show them. I could choose to show them without them asking, but I don't. Unlike PADI our student materials don't clue them into the skills they need to complete. It's pretty easy to figure out at the OW level, but the AOW course & the varuious specialties leave a lot more for the instructor to interpret. Because the minimum standards are not known to a student, they are in a sense "secret."
My "secret" is that AOW students only need to complete 5 dives consisting of a skill evaluation dive, a natural navigation dive, a compass navigation dive, a night or limited visibility dive and a deep dive. I don't tell them this so they assume that MY PERSONAL standards are PDIC's standards. Because, they never ask. So, I usually do up to 25 dives at the AOW level with my students. They need to learn boat diving so, yep, we'll be diving from boats at some point during the course. They need to learn natural navigation so we'll be doing that too and they'll be getting hammered about their trim, buoyancy, team, equipment & environmental awareness (the PDIC manual states they are to practice "total awareness" so to me that means the stuff I learned that GUE called "total awareness") as an introduction to the beatings yet to come. If they didn't already figure it out from the sticker on the bottom of my doubles that says, "the beatings will continue until morale improves," this isn't going to be a cake walk for them. They need to learn search & recovery so they will search & they will recover until they get it right. We need to cover diver stress and rescue so we'll spend a couple days going over rescue skills on the surface & underwater. I'm told to do a limited vis or night dive, so guess what? Yep! We're doing BOTH. Night dive? Isn't that like cave 1? Same skills? Yeah, I think so! They need to learn deep water & decompression diving. I'm told to simulate a deco dive between 60 and 100 feet with at least a 10 foot deco stop so we'll be doing dive(s) to 100 feet and doing decompression stops. We'll be doing Pyle Deep Stops in my course. Since I'm told that I need to practice total awareness, air reserves, time, depth and comfort level... hmm... total awareness? What is that? I think it means that when the team gets too far apart or they lack canister light communication skills we'll be testing out those 1/3 rule air reserves by having OOG/OOA situations. Not monitoring your gauges? You don't want to know your time or depth? That's okay. Since you aren't looking, you don't need to see! Bye-bye facemasks! Comfort level? Comfort level? These are MY students & I love them. I want them to be VERY comfortable at depth. How about a no masked, lift bag launch, air share from 100 feet then reach your stops (good job, guys, you tied knots in your line every 10 feet!) and don't forget the deco (counting in your head one-one-thousand... two-one-thousand) and coming up within two minutes of their v-planned run time... GOOD JOB GUYS!!! 25 dives later, butts kicked, smiles of accomplishment because they see themselves already diving better than most instructors & know they've earned it, gone to sea in a dive boat, done shore dives in surf, etc. Yes! You get your PDIC AOW card!!!
But, guess what? Ssshhh... you guys only had to do 5 dives to get this. That's the secret. Honestly, though, don't you feel better having done the 25 or so?
My students often think I didn't charge enough for all that I taught.
Good thing I'm a lifeguard. I'll never have any money as an instructor.
Trace