At the end of the instructor development course, there is an exam – the dreaded PADI Instructor Exam! It is human nature to focus on passing this exam, but it is not the actual test at all! The actual test is the first class you will teach a PADI instructor.

This is why choosing the correct IDC is so important. You want to learn from a course director to teach you to be a good instructor, NOT to pass IE. Course directors who focus on getting the perfect score in IE often do so as the cost of preparing you for the real-life problems the IDC should be preparing you for. The experience of the course director will play an important role in this. When I started teaching the instructor development course as the new course director (ten years ago), I fell into this trap. I was more concerned with my candidates passing IE than taking the time to focus on more real training.

As time passed and my confidence grew, I began to focus on the problems that I knew my instructor candidates would face in their day-to-day work after passing IE. My newfound confidence allowed me to do this because I now knew that passing IE would be a natural result of this approach. He had taught some IDCs and no one had failed. My fear that one of my candidates would fail diminished. My focus on the instructor exam during my training was reduced. Therefore, my approach to training changed. I wanted my instructor candidates to start working. Teaching safe, fun and well organized PADI courses. It’s one thing to pass IE, but once you get your first job, if you screw up the first few courses you teach, you will lose that job. I realized that it was my job to make sure that didn’t happen. The moral of the story: find a course director with years of experience. They will train you to be a successful dive instructor, not just to pass the exam.

Train in conditions similar to the ones you plan to work with. IDC is certainly not easy, it is made much more difficult by the cold water and poor visibility. So choosing to take the IDC in such conditions certainly adds a number of task load. However, if you are going to teach under those conditions after passing IE, it may well be worth training under those same conditions. However, there is another option. You may decide to take the IDC in warm, pleasant tropical waters and have the OWSI qualification under your belt, and then take the MSDT training in more difficult conditions, similar to those in which you plan to teach.

In PART 2, I’ll take a closer look at the things you can do once you’ve passed the exam for gainful employment.