Mentor - Student relationship Published by Olivier Borgognon on 2009-07-04

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Let me introduce the idea behind the Mentor relationship with a student. We have all heard the expression "when the student is ready, the master appears", therefore if we push this concept a little and apply it to our dive education, we can quite easily see how this becomes extremely important.

Many Instructors forget to take into consideration the specific needs of the student, his background, and focus on skills, on a given set of dry runs and dives, but don't take into consideration how to really "bring" the student to this point. This becomes simple instructing and not teaching or training, and we at ISE aim only for the very best, this is why we recommend that our Instructors use the mentor/trainee relationship.

To explain what we mean by mentor & trainee, let me give you an example. Whilst on training most of the students if asked "do you have any questions" will on a regular basis look at us and answer... not for the moment. But how many of them really come back with questions after the dives or after a theory session ? The content and the performance requirements we want from our students makes the training efficient, but also very intense on both physical and psychological points of view. A trainee comes for feedback on a long run, it is not a nose tissue relationship where you sell a class and then goodbye... it is much more than that, it will allow us to take into account that teaching concept explained above, we will provide him with our feedback, analysis, comments, and help him make the right decisions, not for our sake, but with only one person in mind when helping him out...Him.

Every student should feel totally free to contact their instructor, wherther it is 1 month after a class or 5 years after, to get more feedback and learn from them, this will clearly create a bond between them which will lead to extremely rich interactions. Consider 1+1 = 2... this statement in maths is great... but in reality 1+1 = 3, 4, 5... basically the interactions between the instructor and his student can lead to such incredible results that every single second invested in this relationship should be nurtured.

Olivier

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