Larry Ausley, Committee Chair
Welcome to the ACA River Kayak Committee website. ACA River Kayak Instructors (Levels 1-5), Instructor Trainers and Instructor Trainer Educators are welcome to utilize this site and information. By virtue of your River Kayak Instructor certification and SEIC membership, you are automatically an affiliate member of the River Kayak Committee. Continue reading
The River Kayak Committee has been asked by ACA and the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) to comment on and contribute to a review of the BSA Canoeing and Whitewater merit badges by ACA. Preliminary comments will be going to the BSA this week.
The River Kayak Committee has submitted its committee report to SEIC for the upcoming SEIC meeting in Fredericksburg, VA on Friday, March 9, 2012. All ACA instructors are welcome to attend. See the notice in this month’s SEI Focus newsletter.
In this report, the committee is suggesting draft changes to the committee’s charter that would increase the maximum allowable number of voting members on the committee and subsequently a possible increase in the required voting quorum for voting on business issues of the committee. We believe having at least the ability to maximize instructor participation on the committee strengthens the work and validity of the committee and we are committed to ever enhancing member-instructor participation.
Other ACA discipline committees have proposed similar draft changes to their charters that we will be taking before SEIC in hopes of making all of the discipline charters more consistent. We want River Kayak instructors to play an active role in ACA education and always invite any comments, suggestions or ideas for our future direction.
Kelsey Bracewell with ACA’s SEI office today notified the SEIC that there are now .pdf lists available on the ACA website that should help locate ITs and ITEs in every ACA discipline. Two files, one sorted by Discipline and one sorted by US State, are available on the ACA website and can be selected from this search page by instructors or the general public.
Kelsey indicated that the SEI office is also preparing similar files that will include all ACA instructors, making it that much easier for the public to find paddlesports education near them. We’ll add a new post here when those additional files are available.
To help River Kayak instructors, we have subsampled the ACA .pdf documents and prepared an Excel spreadsheet containing only River Kayak ITs and ITEs. That file can be downloaded here.
In order to visualize that data, we prepared a Google map of River Kayak ITs and ITEs to give a visual overview of where folks are located. The live map can be accessed here.
Let us know if there are additional or different tools that would be useful or if you find any errors in the information presented.
Update: 2/3/12: ACA has added a .pdf list of all international (non-US) ACA instructors, ITs and ITEs in all disciplines. Check it out here.
I spoke recently with a couple of L4 and L5 River kayak instructors about how our local paddling clubs could increase opportunities for their instructors to “cross-pollinate” ideas, teaching styles and methods with other IT/ITEs and instructors outside of our own instructor corps. I think it’s a pretty common occurrence for a group of instructors to develop within some geographic area, mentored by one, or at best a few IT/ITEs and in many cases go for years in an update cycle within that group.
In the past, one club has hired in external ITs from outside of the area to get some new ideas and perspectives. We have also discussed mechanisms of just getting our instructors together for the expressed purpose of brainstorming teaching ideas and techniques. Suggestions like a weekend instructors-only land and on-river workshop have been brought forward.
I doubt that this problem is endemic to our clubs or our area. It’s also unlikely that it’s a club-only issue. Even commercial instructors frequently learn the ropes within their own organization and rarely get a peak outside of it to bring in new ideas. It’s likely that whatever solutions we could develop would benefit commercial and volunteer instructors alike, and thereby, our sport as a whole.
Jump in on this conversation with successes you’ve had with cross-pollination like this or make a few suggestions here. What can instructors do themselves? What can clubs or businesses do? How could ACA itself, at the national or Division levels do to get more involved with this?
In March 2011, the SEIC and ACA Board of Directors approved a one-day crossover curriculum (ICE) to allow current L4+ River Kayak (or River Canoe) instructors to achieve L3 River Safety and Rescue Instructor certification after successful completion of this ICE. Contact ACA Safety and Rescue L3+ ITs about Crossover ICEs.
In October 2011 SEIC and the ACA Board of Directors approved a change in curriculum now allowing L2 and higher River or Coastal Kayak instructors to teach the Flatwater Kayak Safety and Rescue course.
In October 2011, the SEIC and ACA Board of Directors changed the wording of L2 and higher instructor criteria to reflect a change in the interpretation of basic rescue techniques. Where previously “Hand-of-god” had been a requirement, the criteria now reflect the need for instructors and instructor candidates to perform an “Unresponsive paddler rescue” with Hand-of-god offered as an example of such. See L2-L5 River Kayak instructor criteria for specific language.
In February 2009, the SEIC and ACA Board of Directors approved a proposal allowing all ACA instructors to perform skills assessments at, or below their certified level. For example, an L4 River Kayak instructor could perform Level 1, 2, 3 or 4 River Kayak Skills Assessment for students (but could not perform an L5 Assessment). River Kayak Skills Assessments can all be found at: http://www.americancanoe.org/?page=Courses_Kayaking
In June 2010, the ACA Board of Directors authorized L3 River Kayak Instructors who have successfully completed the River Kayak Day Trip Leader Assessment (RKDTLA) to add that to their certification as an endorsement and to subsequently teach and assess that course themselves. L4 and L5 River Kayak Instructors could already teach and assess the RKDTLA.
In the February 2011 SEI Focus newsletter, ACA presented recommended minimum durations for Instructor Certification Workshops.
For River Kayak, the recommendations are:
L1: 2 Days (1 for IDW, 1 for ICE)
L2: 3 Days (2 for IDW, 1 for ICE)
L3: 4 Days (3 for IDW, 1 for ICE)
L4: 5 Days (3 for IDW, 2 for ICE)
L5: 2 (ICE Only)
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