Life after the IE- Instructor Continuing Education in Phuket, Thailand

PADI Specialty Instructor Courses

Prerequisites:
PADI Assistant Instructor or Open Water Scuba Instructor(some courses require student level in addition ex.EANX, Rebreather, Cavern)

 As a PADI Specialty Instructor

You're on your way to becoming a Master Scuba Diver Trainer with only five Specialty Instructor ratings
You challenge your students to become Master Scuba Divers
You increase your marketability as a PADI Professional
Thee are three ways to become a Specialty Instructor – with a Course Director, use your experience to apply directly to PADI or write your own outline.
You can teach courses that interest you!
You can offer more, do more
Do your Specialty Instructor Courses with Mark and get teaching specialties as soon as possible.

Also take the MSDT Prep package of 5 spec instructor courses with Mark andtake advantage of the offer to come back on any subsequesnt specialty instructor course run by Mark and receive the training for free!!!!!!!*

*Excluding materials and fees to PADI

Why would you want to be a specialty instructor?

PADI Course Director Mark Slingo explains in an article for Scuba Jedi:

‘Ok guys. Congratulations on becoming PADI Instructors. Give yourself a standing ovation. You have done exceptionally well to get to this level. Now you can give people a life changing experience as you introduce them and guide them through the world of scuba diving. Get out there and start teaching as much as you can. But what other options are also available to you now? Is this the end of the road? Does you experience stop after the IE? No way!

Don’t let this be the end of your diving education. There are still more things that you can learn and also more things that you can offer people as a diving educator.

For instance have you ever thought about being able to teach the things that interest you? Do you have a particular passion for wreck diving or perhaps underwater photography? Would you like to be able to teach other divers these things so they can join you in your interests? Maybe you just want to be able to teach something that you have real enthusiasm for or something particular to your local environment.

It also means that there is less repetition for you. Let’s face it teaching the same courses day-in-day-out might become a little tedious so the ability to be able to go and teach something else once in a while can provide a nice break plus adding different teaching experiences for you. Either way you might want to think about becoming a PADI Specialty Instructor.

Look at all the options that are available to you. There are over 25 PADI Specialties and that is not including the Distinctive specialties written by instructors that apply to interests of theirs. There is so much more that you can offer your students and your potential dive centre employers.

This is also not something to be sniffed at. If you can teach more then you can offer a potential employer more value as they can obviously utilize you more. The more things you can add to your ‘Instructors Quiver’ then the more valuable you can be to a dive operation. It can also help you to move up the PADI Instructor ladder to Master Scuba Diver Trainer and beyond.

These ratings past the Open Water Scuba Instructor rating denote instructors with a lot of experience and thus give you a large amount of credibility. Once you move onto ratings such as IDC Staff Instructor as well you are starting to help in the PADI Instructor Development process assisting Course Directors in shaping the future diving instructors. Wouldn’t you like to be a part of this process in changing people from divers into guys who can teach diving? Be a part of that life changing experience for someone else. Continue your diving education and this is certainly possible plus it again makes you even more useful within the dive industry.

My own experience as a Staff Instructor took me to a whole new perception in the way I looked at teaching diving and the way that I could work with people. This was pretty much the best transition I made in diving and only encouraged me to go further up the ladder to Course Director.

This might all; be quite a lot to take in just following your gradation from the IDC/ IE which obviously was such a great achievement in itself. But why not build on what you have learned and thus make yourself a more rounded dive professional. Going through the Continuing Education process will also allow you to carry on working with experienced instructors and seeing their methods of teaching which will allow you to build your own style by working with and observing many others. Even now I still learn from watching other diving instructors at work as no one has completely the same way of teaching and working with people.

This is not to say just focus on your con-ed but still get on with teaching the ‘bread and butter’ PADI courses. Just recognize what con-ed can offer you and what you can use it for. Teach those things that really interest you and your enthusiasm for your subject can rub off on your students. There are also little things like teaching certain Specialties can enhance you knowledge to make teaching other courses better such as the PADI Divemaster course.

The point that I am trying to make is that you shouldn’t just think that now you have passed your IE that that is the end of your education. There is so much more that you can learn and so much more that you can offer in the dive industry both to the benefit of your students, and yourself. The PADI system offers so much more for you as an instructor and you should take the opportunity to use it to its full potential and realize your full potential’

IDC STAFF INSTRUCTOR

For those guys who want to go even further up the PADI ladder then we can add the following onto internships once you have completed your Master Scuba Diver Trainer rating (contact for details)

IDC Staff Instructors are PADI Instructors who assist the PADI Course Director in conducting the Instructor Development Course (IDC). They can also independently certify PADI Assistant Instructors.

The IDC Staff instructor’s duties on the IDC include:
• Presenting IDC Curriculum presentations under the supervision of a PADI Course Director.
• Grading candidate presentations and providing feedback.
• Grading candidate exams and providing feedback.
• Demonstrating with the Course Director role model presentations both in the water and classroom.
• Providing the candidates with coaching and support during the IDC.

All in all it is a really hands on responsible role and that first step in working in the PADI Instructor Development system.
People often look back to their IDC’s and remember their Staff instructors for the help and support that they gave them on it and are really grateful for this.

Working on IDC’s is very rewarding work especially when you see your candidate successfully graduate from the PADI Instructor Exam (IE) as new Open Water Scuba Instructors and share in their elation.

Interested? Well if you are a PADI Master Scuba Diver Trainer then this is the path to you. If you want to do an internship to get to this level then Contact Us for package details.

There are 2 ways to the IDC Staff Instructor Rating Option A and Option B.

Option A encorporates the IDC Staff Instructor course into the auditing of a full real IDC.

Option B provides simulated IDC conditions with the IDC Staff Instructor Course and is obviously shorter without having to audit the IDC. Candidates who do it this way are encouraged to audit an IDC as soon as possible to gain the most from their training.

Contact Us about the IDC Staff Instructor Course or internship

International Association for Handicapped Divers (IAHD) Instructor Training

Do you remember the first time you went scuba diving? The feeling of being able to breathe underwater, and the first sensation of being weightless once you had sorted out your buoyancy? Wasn’t it great? Well imagine a couple of new sensations being introduced along with this. The feeling of being free from a wheelchair and being able to go up and down and side to side when normally, you have to worry about smaller issues like steps and terrain. It’s an incredible feeling and as an IAHD Instructor you are in the position to be able to offer that chance of a wonderful experience and new hobby to disabled people.

The training here is conducted by Mark Slingo who is himself a wheelchair user after an accident 4 years ago. He though is the world’s first ever wheelchair user to reach the rating of PADI Course Director. Mark teaches the course trying to get you to look at things from the disabled person’s point of view and really makes the course a much more hands-on experience. Mark will really tell you what diving can do for a disabled person. He is a living example.

The course consists of a classroom session with first a discussion when you are introduced to the problems faced by disabled people, and ways we can combat those problems. You then are introduced to various examples of success stories of how disabled diving has helped people like Mark and Fraser Bathgate the world’s first wheelchair using diving instructor. You then are introduced to a wide variety of disabilities and considerations for enabling people with these various conditions to dive. The classroom session really focuses a great deal on the adaptive techniques you can use to help get more people in the water and is a really interesting and informative session.

On the course in the pool session you will simulate being an instructor for a paraplegic diver, a quadraplegic diver and a sight-impaired diver. Not only that you will also do the dive simulating each of these conditions so you can know what barriers are faced by your handicapped students.

The course will also allow you to take in considerations for various diving venues and what to look for be it boats, and accommodations that have to be made to beaches and how to deal with the obvious problem of soft sand for a wheelchair. Again the course teaches you so much and gives you something that will be useful for you in a diving career, both as a way to help disabled people to discover scuba diving and as something that you can offer a dive centre, which is a little bit different.

Go on think about taking the course it is really worth it!

Pre-requisites

PADI DIvemaster or above (or equivalent ratings)- Upon graduation from the course you will receieve the equivalent ratig from the IAHD but if you are a Divemaster this can be upgraded the moment you become an Instructor.