Every day is SCHOOL day

There’s a Chinese proverb which goes “Learn till old, live till old, and there is still one-third not learned” meaning that no matter how old you are, there is still more learning or studying left to do. It’s a saying which has a lot of relevance to our candidates during every IDC. If each of our candidates learn one new thing every day this IDC, then I will be a happy man.

This IDC we have candidates and staff representing no less than six countries: UK, Spain, France, Poland, Mexico and Germany. And I’ve decided that for this blog, I will share one of the hopefully many lessons that our candidates have learnt each day.

IDC Prep: Day 1. Lesson Learned: You can learn physics without formulas!

Every candidate that will become an instructor needs to know this so that they can comfortably pass their Instructor Exams. But even those with a PhD in applied mathematics needs to know this. Because one day they will need to explain a question about buoyancy to a 12 year-old open water student, or will need to teach their Divemaster trainee – who dropped out of school at 13 – how to calculate air consumption or the pressure-volume relationship.

Our IDC Prep Program (which is free to all our candidates) is a great way for our candidates to solidify their own theory knowledge, and learn new ways to teach and explain dive theory.

IDC Prep: Day 2. Lesson Learned: “Swimming pool in the Caribbean” is not as

Warm as it sounds! If you’ve just arrived to Playa del Carmen from northern Europe or Canada right now, then you’ll be in your shorts and T-shirt and slapping on the sunscreen. For the rest of us it feels like we are in the midst of a polar vortex! In this unusually cold spell you will see locals dressed in thick jackets and woolly hats at night when temperatures can drop as low as 15 °C (59 °F). OK, I am being a bit melodramatic here as it’s not that cold, but essentially it means that a few chilly nights zap the warmth out of the swimming pools here and after a couple of hours in there practicing their demonstration-quality skills today, the candidates were sure ready to get out and dry off, and maybe some were wondering where they can get their hands on a dry suit.

IDC: Day 1. Lesson Learned: It’s easy when you follow the recipe

Today was the first day of the IDC proper, where the candidates got to formally introduce themselves and tell their story as to why they are here ready to start an exciting new chapter in their scuba careers.

It was also the day when the candidates got to give their first classroom presentation to explain a missed question from one of the PADI courses to their pretend students. This is not as difficult as it sounds because this morning the candidates discovered the various PADI tools available to them to help them to give a fun, engaging classroom presentation.

Things like the Lesson Guides presentation slides, and of course the Lesson Plan, or the “recipe”. Just like when cooking, following a recipe will ensure that you don’t forget one of the ingredients making sure that the end result will be a success. PADI have created lots of tools to help make an instructor’s teaching job as simple as possible, and the Lesson Plan is a perfect example of a tool which ensures that all the necessary points are covered in a classroom presentation. Today our candidates used the form for the first time and (sometimes after a little bit of poking and reminding by me) realized how easy it was to follow the recipe and cover all the necessary points for a good presentation. They also got some feedback on what it will take to make a great presentation next time around.