Assistant Instructors?

So, if you have trained with us, you may have been working with an Assistant Instructor during part of your training. What does that actually mean?

Let's start with a very brief explination of the PADI (Proffesional Association of Dive Instructors) structure. To start off your professional diving career, you become a PADI member when you apply for and are accepted as a Divemaster (see prior blog for info on Divemaster). From there, you can take a ~4 day course and become an Assistant Instructor (AI). From there, you only have to take the Open Water Scuba Instructor (OWSI) course and pass the instructor exam to become a full Instructor. Most people combine the AI and the OWSI into one week long course called the Instructor Development Course (IDC). After that they take the two day exam and are a full instructor.

So, what can you do as an AI. Basically put, you can teach the Open Water Scuba course under the direct supervision of an Instructor. Which means you get to work directly with students from beginning to end. Introducing people to diving can be extremely rewarding. Also, you can independently complete the pool session only Discover Scuba Diving.

For a lot of people, being an AI is a career. Most of those people are not here in the US though. For the most part scuba instruction in the US is taught by part timers who have "real" jobs on the side and they teach scuba for the fun and extra money they can make. In the rest of the world however, teaching scuba is considered a full time job. Even though the pay is small, often times Divemasters, AIs, OWSIs rely on tourist tips to augment their income and a professional that has a lot of hustle can make a good deal of money. I know a number of American ex-pats that are doing quite well on Caribbean islands.

Overall, being an AI is not that difficult. The course consists of four parts and each part is performance based, not time based. This means that you get to become proficient at teaching scuba and get comfortable, and not simply just meet a criteria for X number of hours. There are 8 lectures that you have to attend - a little over a days worth. You have to prepare and deliver at least two micro teaching presentations. Micro teaching is just a way to help you organize how you present info to students so that they retain it. The final parts are two confined water and open water teaching presentations. Remember that the system is performance based, so if you have a weak area that needs work, you'll get more practice to build it up.

PADI has built a fantastic instructional system. The basis of this system comes from the founder who in the sixties recognized that scuba instruction could benefit from an organized approach similar to what was being used in more progressive colleges and schools at the time. PADI's system has been copied numerous times, but still remains the gold standard for scuba educational systems.

What I enjoy about the PADI system is that it clearly defines what divers need to do to become certified, communicates it ahead of time and then is also performance based, meaning that divers can take as along or as little time as needed to master skills that they need for their level. Compared to the old days of training, it has come a long way.

If you want more info, let me know. Greg