As diving professionals, we discuss with our students the importance of continuing their diving education. Learning new skills to enhance their diving is a great way to keep people diving and enjoying our underwater world. However, continuing education must go further than just learning a few new skills. As diving professionals, we are supposed to have superior diving skills, we are supposed to be trained on how to present diving material in order to maximize student learning. We should be using the opportunity continuing education courses give us to help mentor and coach divers, not just give them a license to take another class.

What is Mentoring?

Mentoring is defined as a transfer of knowledge from an experienced individual to a lesser experienced individual. Mentoring is about relationships and trust. In order to transfer knowledge from one person to another, the receiver (i.e. mentee) must trust that the more experienced person has the proper knowledge in the subject matter. The mentee must feel “safe” enough to share problems, try new strategies, and make mistakes while learning. That is how skill and judgment are built. We can build a trusting relationship with a few simple components. 1) Integrity – do what you say you will do and don’t do what you say you won’t do, 2) Positive Support – show that you care about the student’s success, and 3) Forgiveness – allow mistakes to be made and learn from mistakes without judgment.

Continuing Education Scuba Classes: More Important than you Think

As I mentioned before, continuing education should not be as simple as showing students a few skills and issuing a certification card. We should take this time to assess what the student already knows so that we can teach them something that they don’t already know. Once we know what they already know, then we can build upon that knowledge to enhance their diving. I also mentioned above that we need to build trust with our students. This takes time. This year, I have done more fun dives with my students before they took a class. This gives me more time to talk with them and start building that trust relationship prior to entering the class. I did a number of dives with a couple of students, Nick and Nate, prior to entering their classes. Both have become very solid divers and I have enjoyed diving (and to continue diving) with them for fun rather than in a class setting.

Summary

Diving instructors need to switch their focus and build a trusting relationship with their students. Then use that relationship to help coach and mentor the students instead of simply “teaching”. This will do a few things, 1) it will show the students that we care about their diving goals, 2) we really do want to see them become great divers, and 3) it will increase their confidence with the new skills they are learning. Allow students to make mistakes. Then patiently correct those mistakes and allow the student to practice the correct behavior. You classes will become much more enjoyable for both you and the students.

Dive Safe,
Duane Johnson
Precision Diving