 Poster: A snowHead
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slikedges,
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Do you reckon most people who go to the average French/Austrian/Italian/Swiss/US ski school come away thinking they had a "great" experience? I think not. |
Totally agreed, and I am (or at least used to be) pretty much what Wayne describes as one of those
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people turning up for ski school [who] just want to either learn the basics of skiing or just progress their ability over what they achieved last holiday.
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Even from that modest viewpoint, I reckon I've thrown a huge amount of money away, over the years, on useless ski classes. Since joining sHeads, however, I've spent lots of money on lessons, sure, but I've got value (in spades) from that money.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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For me, both the CSIA L2 and BASI L2 requirements are probably too low (these being the only 2 I have any experience of). Just thought I would throw that in to the mix 
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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arv,
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For me, both the CSIA L2 and BASI L2 requirements are probably too low
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Why? An entry level is needed (haven't we reached that consensus before?!) You can't magically expect someone to be at a high level of technical and teaching experience (note experience is key!) at the start of their career (as in most other professions the world over). In my view CSIA and BASI L1 are too low, as the personal performance at that level can be pretty ropey, but L2 is about right as an entry level. Achievable without having to take seasons off to train before you can even start your career (which you'd have to do to get to ISIA unless you had a strong race background), but when you pass it you should be capable of teaching piste skiers with up to about 4 or 5 weeks experience. As you progress towards ISIA and your experience and technical ability grow, then the level you should feel comfortable teaching will increase too.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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beanie1, ''teaching experience (note experience is key!)'' I don't think CSIA L2 should be attainable without a little real teaching experience.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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| beanie1 wrote: |
| slikedges, In my 25 years' worth of my family and friends' ski school experiences, I'd say the "so so" experiences are are a tiny tiny percentage. As Wayne, said the vast majority of holiday skiers are looking for someone to keep them safe, enhance their holiday enjoyment, and teach them a bit too. I've never had a ski school not listen to us or our friends as a client - although of course if you choose to go to group ski school your input into the lesson will not be the same as for a private lesson - but that's reflected in the price. I'm surprised you don't realise that most holiday skiers are not looking for a high performance clinic or a significant level of technical input (they're on holiday!). Of course I'm not criticising your sor anyone else's desire to find a recommendation for a truly excellent teacher (I do that myself!), but our goals are vastly different to those of the average holiday skier. |
beanie1 I know plenty of them. maybe they are more likely to talk to me because I'm the super gumby who is(was) also one of the most nervous people you have ever seen when it came to skiing(actually to most sports or physical endeavours)... In my work I travel around a bit - and I meet heaps of these people who went skiing ONCE and vow they will never ever do so ever again. Why? well sometimes it is the instructor - sometimes the actual ski school management could do better - or the resort. Generally though you won't find them hanging around a ski school - they just fail to ever return.
One pretty obvious example - older couple(maybe 40-50) on the larger side (not heaving fat just not athletic/fit trim - they watch weight for health reasons)... they went skiing for a weekend with friends - got put in lessons (Ok friends got this bit right).... This particular resort moved the ski school from the prime land centre of village location it once occupied(a sheltered bowl) to the top of another hill. It is now in a windswept place that is relatively hard to reach (in their defence it is closer to a bowl that is great for intermediates). In order to reach the meeting place for their lesson(ski school) this couple now needed to done their ski gear(including boots there is no ski lodge at the top with a changing room - and the hire place is at the bottom) and then carry their skis etc to the lift, get on lift, ride lift, get off lift, and get to ski school(around corner from lift)... I think you can imagine the type of carnage this can cause! and YEP sure did - the guy managed to disembark form the lift with instructions from the friends, but the wife did the usual beginner fall on back effort straight off the chair and still blushes when the story is told - because she was legs in air with the whole lift and a heap of ski school folks watching while the lift staff hauled her up. In this case the resort and/or ski school(they are all owned and run by the same folks - as the resort has sole rights to run ski schools on the land) could easily solve the problem(this happens all the time and worse for families with kids) by simply running a "beginner shuttle" of some type to run beginners to lessons - they know the lesson times and could simply publish the times to be collected and run the shuttle to match these lesson times. Better still(from a customer view point) they could leave the beginner lessons in the first location. This prevents them from developing land into apartments and also means the ski instructors need to make the journey to the beginner area(maybe 5 mins maximum) if they are not already there. In this case the resort and ski school fail beginners horribly - not because of their instructors(who were mostly pretty good) but because they have lost the good manager they once had, and now have folks who just do not understand the needs of beginners and families with small children Imagine the lift scenario for a family with a couple of small children and the whole family has never skied - I've physically removed skis from some of these and carried the skis while the lifties sent them as foot passengers which means slowing the lift for on and off but is better than stopping when the kid falls off - this only works if someone like me finds out they are new and will take the skis. (Most of these lifties re actually very good but they cannot help if they do not know)
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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little tiger, my experience is all in Europe - maybe your experience (which I think is predominantly US and Australia?) is different. Most resorts I've ever been to have a suitable location for the start of beginners' lessons! And you sort of contradicted yourself anyway by saying:
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their instructors(who were mostly pretty good)
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I just took exception to the way slikedges was so critical of the entire ski teaching profession, suggesting that most people have a fairly average experience. I'm just surprised, as I have been skiing quite a while (all through childhood spending my whole holiday at ski school in various European countries) and this is simply not my anecdotal experience.
In my experience a few ski teachers are excellent, most are good, and some absolutely rubbish. Which pretty much reflects life and every profession in the world!!!
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| arv wrote: |
| beanie1, ''teaching experience (note experience is key!)'' I don't think CSIA L2 should be attainable without a little real teaching experience. |
yep - there should be requirements for team teaching with more experienced folks for XX hours before being let loose alone... and then more supervised hours again before independent teaching. (I know some places do some but it is not enough). Just like an apprentice tradesman - they do work but are not qualified and cannot work alone until certified.
I would argue a newly graduated pharmacist has more real life experience than a CSIA 2(many hours of placements exist in all the courses here) - yet will then spend another year under supervision before being considered experienced enough to sit a registration exam. Without that registration they can never work alone despite having the degree the year earlier.
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beanie1, with apologies for misquoting you
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In my experience a few are excellent, some are good, and most are absolute rubbish. Which pretty much reflects my profession! |
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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I don't know anything about CSIA, but there is a teaching requirement for BASI L2. They will have done a minimum of 70 hours shadowing (about 4 weeks) before they even take the L2 course. Do CSIA L1s not have to get any experience before they can take L2? If not then yes I agree there should be a requirement for teaching experience.
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I would argue a newly graduated pharmacist has more real life experience than a CSIA 2(many hours of placements exist in all the courses here)
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Quite right too!! But a pharmacist could very easily kill or make someone seriously ill if they made a mistake... That's pretty unlikely for a low level ski instructor...
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beanie1, no until recently I had more experience in Europe than in USA - and I do not get to talk to folks so much in USA. (Although I had an interesting experience re a certain camp with a bunch of women who were less than excited about their experiences)... and most of the instructors that do double seasons here are European or Canadian - very few from USA for some reason. You also forget how many aussies travel overseas.
All resorts here would claim a suitable beginner area - just that getting to that one is tricky and the managers cannot see it (they all grew up on skis - ski school was managed by austrians at all top levels and resort staff are local)
No contradiction - I was using that as an example of how the instructor may NOT be the reason for folks being less than satisfied - that ski school had had a very tough trainer who was known for great results - he left though and it is not the same now.
I have seen a lot of similar in ski areas in Europe - try riding the bus in the Chamonix Valley as a new skiing family with small children! There are plenty of things that make the whole learn to ski experience terrible. I've spoken to a lady who had an instructor tell her "You are the worst student I have ever had" Just guess if her family(who enjoyed their ski trip) get to go on ski holidays now? I've had friends of mine dragged over terrain too difficult and scared witless.... I've had other friends spend years on lessons that got them no-where. One owned a ski lodge and told people not to bother with lessons because "you don't learn much". She would watch the new instructors turn up every year and be let loose on clients shortly afterwards. She said she knew more about skiing than they did - and she could well have been right!
I've skied better than a fair chunk of my home ski school for a fair while now - and I would only just start to see myself as fairly competent with a fair bit of my understanding consolidating only the last couple of years. Generally those that skied better than me were ISIA. I really do feel ISIA is pretty close to the level needed to teach independently fairly successfully. My instructors were trainers(all over the world) and race coaches. I've spent countless chairlift rides with them staring intently at some low level instructor going "what the xxx is he/she thinking doing that!" "Must speak to them about that". IMO These low level guys should just not be teaching alone.
Oh and re the USA - LOL I've watched too many students make perfect copies of the instructor who is rotating every turn and pushing the tails! (aaarrggghhh ) I've also had a great lesson (Canyons) with a pretty astute and adept instructor (I think trainer also). PSIA do seem in general to deserve their reputation though!
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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beanie1, CSIA 2 can be got without ANY real life teaching AIUI.... Way too many folks wandering around claim to fame being a ski instructor with a CSIA 2 Once I was impressed now I just 
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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little tiger,
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try riding the bus in the Chamonix Valley as a new skiing family with small children! There are plenty of things that make the whole learn to ski experience terrible.
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Nothing to do with the ski school! I actually agree with this. But in Europe the resort infrastructure and ski schools are not owned by the same company. We're talking only about ski schools here.
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beanie1, well actually with some lateral thinking they could help.... provide lockers & changing area to allow ski boots to be donned on arrival...etc etc...my home resort does this - warm boot lockers and ski storage makes a huge difference to beginners
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You know it makes sense.
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beanie1,
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In my 25 years' worth of my family and friends' ski school experiences, I'd say the "so so" experiences are are a tiny tiny percentage.
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Then you need more experience! All you have to do is search sH to realise that even bad experiences are more than a "tiny tiny percentage" the corollary being so-so experiences likely to be a bigger percentage still. Anyway, my contention was that most clients of the average ski school don't come away thinking they had a great time, but either a good time or a so-so time.
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As Wayne, said the vast majority of holiday skiers are looking for someone to keep them safe, enhance their holiday enjoyment, and teach them a bit too.
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He didn't say that, but BASI does in all its manuals.
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I'm surprised you don't realise that most holiday skiers are not looking for a high performance clinic or a significant level of technical input (they're on holiday!).
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What have I posted that would lead you to believe I don't realise such an obvious thing? That I suggested to Wayne that leaving things to chance was possibly not the most sensible course of action for what I wanted?
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I just took exception to the way slikedges was so critical of the entire ski teaching profession... |
Hmmm, a little hyperbole there? I think you need to go skiing
Hurtle, yours is a common experience, that's why people give up on lessons, then rediscover them with good ski schools/instructors
little tiger, as you say, Europe is the same, though I gather the guest experience side of things is recognised as paramount in the Canadian system and afforded the appropriate emphasis
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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slikedges,
Main thing to remember; you're going on holiday so have fun.
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Poster: A snowHead
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Wayne, always! 
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Slikedges...
Well, to go back to the original question...which was about the Italian ski school system.
No, there aren't Maestro levels anymore, there used to be once upon a time. Only in South Tyrol (Alto Adige) there is now the differentiation between a ski instructor assistant level and a ski instructor level...
This is mainly due to the fact that each Region (Lombardy, Piedmont, Valle d'aosta etc) has its own committee that interacts with the national board and receives input from it, but can take certain decisions independently.
But I wonder what would happen if you were to go there and ask...probably you'd get the same reply you posted.
Then, even if a Maestro is a Maestro, there are "Istruttori" (the term, applied in the skiing world becomes almost a "false friend", let's translate that as "instructor's instructors") and "Allenatori" (Race coaches).
It will be unlikely that you'll be taught by a race coach, for at least two reasons :
-Usually the "ski school" is a different organization from the "local" race club, and there it's where you'd find the race coaches, unless they choose to teach at the ski school as well, but in that respect they will be presented simply as a "Maestro", like anybody else.
-I beg to differ from the opinion that an ex-racer/racer would be beyond any reasonable doubt a great ski instructor, judging only on the base of his/her race career. What a Maestro has to learn to become one, is not how to ski but how to teach, what to teach and how to communicate with the the pupil(s). Versatility is the keyword, if he/she won't be able to adapt and teach whatever you needto learn, not only race technique, and to communicate with you effectively, what good will it be if he/she is a race coach or an ex-racer? All is in the relative "distance" (skills delta?) between teachers and pupils and in a) the instructors communication skills b)his/her theoretical technical knowledge c) his/her personal teaching preferences.
IMHO 97% of ski instructors do know how to ski, quite well, thank you. Btw the first and biggest hurdle in Italy, to gain access to the title, is to pass the "selections", in which a candidate must demonstrate his/her skiing skills. It's a two/three days test where candidates must ski assigned tasks and pass a test (usually a GS course, either timed against a pacesetter or "free"). Their skills will be assessed by the "Istruttori".
Now, again, an "Istruttore" is also a "Maestro" and again, such a person usually teaches at a ski school to the public as well, not only to aspiring instructor. Again, the title could be "hidden" and the person presented as "Maestro". The reasoning behind that was given to you in the reply you got.
But even if you were to ask for an "Istruttore" or an "Allenatore", what next? What are your aspirations for the week? You will not be sure that his/her language and communications skill be up to the task. So I'd first ask for a good communicator in your chosen language, and then for skiing skills, which will be quite high anyway.
Then, if you plan to go off-piste, there's another category of professionals to draw from, the Mountain Guides (Guide Alpine). Usually these won't teach skiing techniques, because their role is to guide you outside the groomed terrains, but still, one can learn from them.
Wayne, living and teaching here during the winter as far as I can see, can help you loads, btw.
Cheers.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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Matteo, thanks for your valuable further elucidation of the Italian system 
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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slikedges, my pleasure. Enjoy your italian holiday!
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