Reflective instructors

​One of the joys of running a BSAC training centre is that I get to teach diving all year round rather than the usual branch approach of teaching across winter.  Many branches are lucky enough to have a good core of instructors and if you are asked to teach one of the theory lessons for the Ocean Divers that might be your entire theory allocation until next year.  By contrast I find myself able to deliver the Ocean Diver and Sports Diver lessons without reference to the visual aids.  I have to keep checking that I have actually said the crucial piece of information during this lesson rather than the one I delivered a few days ago. 

With practical skills, I find it much easier to ensure that I’m not suffering from déjà vu.  Individual divers are so variable and the practical skills are so obviously progressively taught that every lesson takes on a unique character.  PADI instructor exams include an element of fault correction during the teaching section as fellow candidates are briefed by the examiner to do daft things like trying to put on a mask upside down.  BSAC instructor exams don’t need this element as any instructor regularly helping out with training will experience a wider range of trainee diver ‘cock ups’ than any examiner could conceive of!  And it is those trainee mistakes, variations in technique, different attitudes and different characters that really make every practical session a different beast.

Rescue skills are a particular bug bear of mine.  My initial training included some really poor technique that meant any rescue I attempted was likely to be at best ineffective and at worst dangerous.  My potential for drowning an already unconscious casualty was never going to improve a bad situation. Luckily at some point a National Instructor was invited into our branch and we tested his diplomacy skills to the maximum as he patiently corrected the endemic poor technique.  I learnt a particularly good technique and I hope that by now I have done it enough to overcome the possibility of returning to my original training under stress. 

Even though I hope none of my students ever need Rescue skills, it is an aspect that I particularly focus on.  I’m sure everyone knows that skills go out of practise and it’s a brilliant idea to see clubs having an early season refresher that everyone joins in.  I have a theory that being rescued by an active instructor who has demonstrated and practised the drill several times in a year would be the ideal situation….unfortunately for me I am often diving with those who I have taught recently!  So ensuring they get the skill right is important for me as their buddy, as much as it is for me as an instructor.

But who checks my skills?  Do I claim to be the best instructor ever?  Certainly not!  But I do claim to be a reflective instructor.  I continually appraise how my lessons went, whether we achieved the learning objectives and, if not, why not.  And I talk to the rest of the instructor team about all of the lessons we teach.  We are all open to new ideas, we are all open to appraising each other’s lessons and to learning new ways of teaching the sport we love.  This isn’t a concept that is unique to diving, it’s a basic premise for achieving quality teaching.  Schools do it, universities do it and we do too.

Reflective practise doesn’t come easily to some.  It requires an open minded attitude and the humility to admit that you can make mistakes and, importantly, that you can learn from those mistakes and not keep repeating them.  BSAC’s incident report is a brilliant source of information to help you avoid some common mistakes.  Although some of the detail is limited in the published reports, it’s often easy to see where the ‘incident pit’ started and where you could hope to have intervened if you were in that unfortunate situation.  From my perspective, the earliest intervention possible is to ensure that really good skills are taught from the very first lesson.  I probably won’t be there when any of my students experience an incident in future, but the skills that I have taught them will be there with them.  I hope I’ve done a good enough job that everything turns out well.  I owe it to myself, my students and their future buddies to be the best instructor I can, and if anyone else wants to improve my techniques then I’m happy to learn.
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Just for the record, when my ‘student’ in my PADI instructor exam tried to put his mask on upside down, I had turned it over in his hand before he had even got it near his face.  The examiner told me off as I didn’t let the student make the mistake he had briefed for.  In my ethos, preventing the mistake was entirely the point.  I don’t want a student to panic trying to fit a mask upside down.  I want a confident and happy student who checks the orientation of the mask before trying to refit it.  My job done.