Angel and I have two kids. If you ask any of their grandparents they are the two brightest, most beautiful, most advanced-for-their-age kids on the planet. Clearly modesty and realism go out of the window when you are grandparents, and occasionally as a mother I lose those qualities too.
Since the arrival of our youngest, Clarisse, almost two years ago, I have watched with fascination how she and her big brother interact with each other. Whilst they fight like cat and dog sometimes (most of the time actually) it is also clear to see that Marc cares for and looks out for his little sister, and Clarisse admires her big brother – one sign of this is the way that she will try to copy everything he does, good and bad. She stares intently at whatever he is doing, and then a few seconds later after gathering her thoughts, will imitate him. By having an older sibling to watch, I think that Clarisse is in some ways developing faster than Marc did.
Maybe you are wondering what all this has to do with scuba diving? Well. as a new Instructor, fresh from your IDC and Instructor Exams, you are like an “instructor baby”. Imagine being placed in your new job without any “instructor sibling” to watch over you, look out for you, and show you how things are done. I would guess that being that “baby” would feel quite scary at times, daunting and hard work to make sure everything was being done properly with only what you had learnt during your IDC to guide you. Maybe you would try to run before you could walk and no doubt there would be a lot of trips and falls along the way – learning by your mistakes as to what works and what doesn’t.
Wouldn’t it be nice to have a “big instructor brother or sister” to help you out in those first weeks when you are learning to walk? Watching someone else organise a course from start to finish, realising just how early you need to start preparing things so that you are ready for when the students arrive, being told that you are under-estimating the amount of time it will take you and your students to do the skills in the pool. They will probably see you make your own mistakes, but will be there to help you make things right at the end of the day.
That is what team-teaching is all about. Helping new, inexperienced instructors to find their feet during those first few courses. Then when their confidence is growing and they are toddling around on their own, it’s time for them to go it alone. They will still have lots to learn, but they will have the basics that they can build on, and it would probably have taken a new instructor on their own a lot longer to get to the same stage.
Team-teaching is something that PADI highly recommends for new instructors, as do The GoPro Family which is why will give our MSDT Prep candidates a free 3-week instructor internship where they can teach their first few courses alongside more experienced instructors at one of Pro Dive Mexico’s nine resort-based dive centres.
I remember doing a similar internship as a new instructor and I don’t know what I would have done without it. I assisted many courses as a Divemaster but it’s not the same – during my IDC I picked up much more knowledge and afterwards looked at things in a completely different light, so being able to assist other instructors, as an instructor myself, was really helpful to me. Working alongside a few different instructors also meant that I could observe their different teaching styles and steal the best of their ideas to use myself. One thing that springs to mind is one instructor’s briefing for attaching the low pressure inflator and it’s similarity to a foreskin, which I admit to using myself, although only to a certain audience!
The only down-side to such an experience is the fact that you’re not getting paid during that time but this negative is far outweighed, in my opinion, by all the positives. You take the best bits to enhance your own teaching style, and also learn from the bits that didn’t work for you. Your chance of personal development is much greater and there’s even the chance that, if you can impress the dive shop staff and show them that you can be a great instructor and team-member, they might want to give you a paid position to keep you there.
So, there’s lots to be said for having that big brother or sister.