Marine Group associated with their biology class so for those students who want, they
can get more in depth and hands on classes that involve snorkeling and finding out more
about the marine environment, extra curricular activities and lectures. One of the benefits
is it now includes a UTD Open Water diver course. They use this also as good marketing
for their school.
From the students’ point of view this keeps it interesting for them going to school and
break up the daily routine. Their comments are things like, “Can you also teach our other
classes?” or ,”It is so cool that our schools offers this.” Also, we have heard from the
teachers that is reflects back to their normal schoolwork in a positive way.
When we get to the pool things really take off. We start with the approach of letting the
students get to know their bodies in this new aquatic environment through exercises such
as otter rolls and breathing for buoyancy. These skills clearly give them such a strong
foundation to build upon and boosts confidence of the students who are less used to the
water. This is also when you, as the instructor, get allot of great feedback. I mean comments like, “Wow, this sounds like a real diving sound,” when they take their first breath
gives me goosebumps.
We have some groups up to 30 divers, but we always divide them into smaller groups so
we have two instructors for 8-10 divers. Because even though their brains are super tuned
in to learning new things as opposed to the stubborn adults we sometimes have, you can’t
teach them with the same intensity as adults. They have hormones coursing through the
veins that has them literally flying up the walls when you don’t let them blow off some
steam every once in a while. Seeing their fellow students in bathing suits, combined with
the fact that they (usually the boys) don’t want to loose face when they are presented with
a new skill can give some funny situations. Letting them express some teenage rebellion
for 2 minutes gives you 10 minutes of concentration back.
We got into contact with most of these schools by starting with teaching the teachers.