Posted by Griff Borgeson on March 25, 2002 at 10:52:31:
Or more aptly put, you can have a bad instructor and still have a good course.
When I did my BOW class (NAUI) We all agreed that the course was extremely sound in the fundamentals. And all these years and hundreds of dives later--I still think so. The problem was the instructors poolside manner, if you will. The instructor was an ex NavSeal and trained us in more of a military style and technique. I thought I was back in boot camp.
This teaching method is unnecessary for 30 and 40 year old people. People have a tendency to tune out due to verbal abuse, put downs and the like. Not everyone tuned out, most people completed the class but I've only seen a couple of them still diving.
I feel that there are two kinds of dive professionals in the world of scuba and the two, when they confront each other never see eye to eye. Type 1 is the kind of wannabe macho "old school" (self professed of course) and type 2 is the kind of instructor who will want to de-mystify the phoney baloney attitudes of type 1. Ego is the single most destructive thing about diving. Students learn much more effectively with a type 2 instructor. Thankfully, the g-string wearing loser with the confrontational attitude and the "I'm the scuba police" bravado are mostly retiring.
My 0.02
Griff