Diving Into Instruction - Chastity's Why

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In this episode, Chastity Stern shares her journey to becoming a scuba instructor, discussing the challenges and experiences that shaped her teaching philosophy. She emphasizes the importance of learning from students and how scuba diving has positively impacted her personal growth and confidence. The conversation also touches on the passion for diving and the commitment to safety in the sport.

takeaways

• Chastity became an instructor to help others like herself.
• Teaching is a two-way street; instructors learn from students.
• Scuba diving has enriched Chastity's life beyond the water.
• Confidence in scuba translates to confidence in life.
• It's important to acknowledge what you don't know.
• Chastity values the safety and well-being of her students.
• The journey of learning is ongoing for both instructors and students.
• Scuba diving fosters a sense of community and shared passion.
• Teaching diving is about love for the sport, not financial gain.
• Chastity's experiences as a diver shape her teaching approach.

Chapters

00:00
Introduction to the Just Go Diving Podcast

00:21
Why did Chastity become an Instructor

02:18
Personal Growth Through Scuba Diving

06:34
The Reality of Being a Scuba Instructor

08:50
Introduction to the Podcast and Legal Disclaimer

scuba diving, instructor journey, personal growth, teaching philosophy, confidence, scuba community, learning, passion, safety, diving experiences

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Transcript

Joel Chernick (00:21)
Hey Chas, what's happening?

Chastity Stern (00:24)
Nothing much Joel, what have been up to?

Joel Chernick (00:26)
Not much, just excited about this new episode.

Chastity Stern (00:29)
Yeah, and today we're gonna be talking about how I became an instructor.

Chastity Stern (00:37)
I became an instructor because...
And I love my open water instructor dearly. I have a lot of respect for him. My open water class was his very first open water class to teach and there were 10 of us in there and I can't even imagine the level of stress that that caused. Yes, 10 people.

Joel Chernick (00:56)
10 people are the first class. That does not sound like good planning.

Chastity Stern (01:02)
No, and I don't know that he had a choice. I've never asked, like, did you pick to have 10? Like, who picked that for you? I know that in my first class teaching open water instruction, it's overwhelming. It's very, very overwhelming. I had the fortunateness to have another instructor who didn't teach a lot of Open Water classes, but they were willing to co-teach with me so that I wouldn't be by myself, which was super cool. I appreciate that still to this day. But my Open Water instructor, I can't imagine the level of stress that he was under with 10 students. When we went to Open Water, another instructor came and helped him because, you know, in cold water, it's tough. 

I became an instructor because of the experiences that I had in my own open water instruction. Just like, oh hey, how can I instruct someone in these skills who doesn't fail well, who puts a lot of pressure on their self, who wants to always be perfect? How can I teach that person? How can I teach myself? 

That's why I became an instructor because I'm like, there are other people like me in this world and I know a lot of them, I've met them through diving. I have a very good friend of mine who is a diver, who is also a woman, and she doesn't fail well, but she's learning to fail well and it's really tough for her. 

I became an instructor to teach people that were like me. People will say "you can be difficult" and I can, I have a lot of opinions. I have a lot of knowledge in other areas that spills over and sometimes I'm argumentative and I don't want to listen. And I think we're all like that, but I became an instructor to teach people that were like Chastity that were like-minded and just a little bit more difficult at times. 

I feel like by teaching those people, that are like me, it allows me to continue to learn in a way that I might not have continued learning because everyone's like, "you just know all the things", but I don't, I don't know all the things. 

There's never going to be ever in the history of ever, that I know all the things. I just can't, it keeps me learning. These are really smart people too. You know, they're really smart and they might not be scuba smart, but they're really smart and they are teaching me, as I'm teaching them. 

Scuba has this great way of just spilling into and over, kind of like the ocean, just the whole of it all. Scuba has spilled all over my life and I just had someone tell me today that I was an expert in my field and scuba diving because I also have a different life outside of scuba diving. 

Scuba has allowed me to be so much more present in my regular life. I actually apologize to my sons who are grown now and I said "I'm really sorry that I didn't start diving when you were little because I would have been a lot more patient". And they're like, it's okay, Mom. I feel like I have, through scuba, I have learned skills.

I think I'm a very patient instructor. I would say that just about every student I've ever taught went into instruction with me thinking, my gosh, this is going to be the most difficult instructor I've ever had in anything. But it's only because I'm holding them to a standard to keep them safe and alive that by the end of it, they're like, my gosh, she was so patient with me. I absolutely know that about myself.

My kids are like, yeah, you're more patient. I think.

Joel Chernick (04:59)
It's interesting the things that you learn in doing scuba and how they translate into your life outside of scuba and how they kind of cross pollinate. I think diving, you learn more about yourself and what you learn about yourself that enriches the rest of your life too.

Chastity Stern (05:03)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I totally agree with that. I think that I have always been a confident person. I don't think that there's ever been a time in my life that I am not being competent. about. Competent? Yes, and confident about whatever it is. That was very Freudian slip right there. That was funny. I've always been confident, but I'm much more confident with the hard stuff.

Most people say, I don't like math and I was one of those, but I had to do math for whatever reasons. We all have to do math. We have to learn math. We have to do the math things. But I am much better at math now because I could apply it to something. I could be like, well, I need to figure out like what atmosphere of pressure I'm at and how that relates to off gassing. I never had anything to really apply it to prior that made it where I didn't feel like gosh I have to do some math and people are gonna judge me.

Because again I hope that if I don't have the answer and the person that's asking me, they're gonna help me to find the answer and that kind of loops right back around to why I became an instructor. 

Someone that I have the utmost respect for told me, "I'm never gonna ask you a question that I already know that you know the answer to. Because I don't wanna waste your time or mine. But if you give me an answer and it's not the right answer and you just give it to me instead of just telling me that you don't know, then we're gonna have a problem". Because he didn't want me to make shit up, he just wanted me to be like, I don't know.

That was really hard. I learned through scuba that it was okay to say that I didn't know because he said, "you can't possibly know what you don't know" and there's a lot that I don't know about scuba. In the beginning, and I was super fortunate to meet him very early on in my scuba life, very early on. And I was like, it's okay to not know. It's okay to just say I don't have a clue. But then, like you said, it just cross-pollinated into all the rest of my life. I'm now capable of just telling someone I don't know, I don't have the answer. And that's very cliche to say, I don't know the answer, but I"ll go find it. 

I always, my whole life, felt under the microscope to just give an answer and for other reasons. Scuba allowed me to be like, I don't have to have this answer and it's okay to say that I don't know, but hopefully I'll work through it and I'll figure it out.

Joel Chernick (08:05)
It takes confidence to say that you don't know something.

Chastity Stern (08:09)
I can appreciate that, but it doesn't feel like it, you know? Like I don't think that anybody feels confident saying, I don't have the answer. And it goes back to the competitive weirdness in scuba that I don't really get because I'm like, I don't get it. I don't get it because nobody can know everything. And I think that even if you've been doing scuba for 60 years...

Joel Chernick (08:16)
Mm-mm.

Chastity Stern (08:36)
How could you possibly know everything about everything because there's not enough days in the week, in the month, the year to know everything. Even if you learn one thing every day for 70 years, you'd know a lot of stuff but you have to have time to learn the surface stuff too. The stuff that you can interact with other humans and you can go do your regular job because I'll never make a living in scuba.

People who can, I don't know who they are. It's not me cuz yeah, so Yeah, I you know, I never got into scuba to make money and people who do, they are busting their butt.. like they're really really working hard and I gotta work hard in my regular life.

Joel Chernick (09:04)
It's not gonna happen. We're lucky we can do it for fun.

It's like that joke, you know how to make a small fortune and is a scuba instructor? Start with a big one.

Chastity Stern (09:27)
No.

That's, that's right. You told me that. How to make a small fortune as scuba instructor, start with a big one. Yeah. Like I didn't, I did not become a scuba instructor to make money. I mean, it's nice to maybe make $5 after you teach a ginormous class. Yeah. Because you know, scuba instructors, I mean, unless you live in a warm water location, living in cold water place...

Joel Chernick (09:44)
Breaking even, breaking even is good.

Chastity Stern (09:55)
You're doing it because you really love it. You want to make sure that people are learning the skills according to the standards. You're wanting to make sure that they know that it's about being safe and going home at the end of a dive and keeping their buddy safe, and what are the parameters that you have to operate within to make sure all that happens.

But if anybody is making money diving, teaching diving in the Pacific Northwest, I, yeah, my hat is off to them.

Joel Chernick (10:28)
I think you do it because you just love it and you want to share your love of it with other people and you want to see them enjoy it as much as we do.

Chastity Stern (10:36)
Yeah, I mean, I really, you know, like I have people who I have taught from open water all the way through rescue and public safety diving. And I am super thankful that they continue to trust me to teach them, but it also lets me know that they're still allowing me to teach them because they see how much I love it and they love it too. We're like-minded and they truly know that I'm never going to steer them in the wrong direction. They know that, I'm going to be like, I don't know. What do you think about it?

Joel Chernick (11:14)
They know that you're not making it difficult just to be difficult. You are trying to hold them to the highest standards because you want to keep them safe in a very dangerous thing.

Thank you.

Chastity Stern AI (11:26)
Thanks for joining me today, Joel.

Chastity Stern (11:29)
And now for the legal stuff. The Just Go Diving podcast is intended for entertainment purposes only. The opinions expressed by the host and guests are not a substitute for professional scuba instruction. All scuba diving training and activities should be performed exclusively by certified scuba divers and strictly within the scope of their training and certification. Neither the host nor the guests assume any liability for injuries, damages, or other consequences arising from the use of any information provided in this podcast.