I'm relieved. It's been a tough semester. We have students of all races and socio-economic backgrounds in our classes. Most of them are in the classes for one thing; a chance to learn a skill that doesn't involve pushing a dietary or housekeeping cart. They want a better chance at a good paycheck. Some are looking for a way to serve. Others are being sent to the class to aid them on getting off the welfare system.
This is now my seventh semester of teaching. I still love it. But our classes meet twice a week in the evenings and both lecture and lab are involved in each 2.5 hour session, and massive amounts of material must be covered at each class.
Our challenge this semester was the weather. Four classes were canceled, and the push was on to cover all the necessary material, push the four missing labs into the other labs and still turn out a quality student in time for clinicals. All the students needed to maintain a passing grade of 75% on the didactic portion.
It was tough. But, we did it. The students ended up with two practical exams almost back to back, and not much more than that for the final practical and final exam. Two students were teetering on the edge. Without that passing grade, they wouldn't be able to continue to clinicals. We corrected their final exams before we left the last night. We were afraid we would have to tell them they couldn't go any further. But, they made it!
In late May we'll meet with them for the last time to go over the paperwork from their clinical preceptors. We've never done that before; it should be interesting to hear about their exploits.
Some of the people have me worried. One woman, a Muslim, is worried that she'll be treated badly because of her head covering. We assured her it wouldn't be a problem. In fact, one of the other Muslim women on staff routinely tells those who question her that she's a nun. Usually shuts them right up.
Another woman took the class to escape from housekeeping. Sad to say, I won't be able to recommend her no matter how well her clinicals are done. Her housekeeping job happens to be in my NICU and I've watched her in action for the last year. She's lazy and does as little as she can to get by. As an example, one weekend I had to actually tell her to fill our paper towel dispenser. She felt the dispenser, opened it up and saw that it was about 1/4 full. She indicated that there were paper towels in it already, and was miffed when I told her that we really needed it full as housekeeping only makes one pass per shift on weekends, it seems. She flounced off to get more paper towels and when I asked her to fill it again the next day, she was really mad because she had "just filled it yesterday!"
Ya think I'm going to want her near patients when she doesn't understand the value of soap and water in a hospital? Ain't gonna happen.
Another woman needed a career because her marriage fell apart. On the last night of class she crept over to us and asked us if we could recommend some sort of computer class for her - she was afraid she'd never be able to do any computer portion of her work. Of course we recommended a course for her.
One of the guys in the class was already employed by BHTS in another capacity. He applied for, and took one of the part time openings on the adult team. And, he got cocky because he already had a job, while everyone else hadn't even given a thought to applying for a job. I had to pull him aside and make a decision to be completely politically incorrect and tell him to cut it out; his cockiness was apparent in his classwork; his grades dropped on tests and homework. I had to be blunt and tell him that even if he had a job, he still had to get 75% to pass the class, and also impress his clinical site before he'd get a certificate. I watched his grades begin to creep back up. I'm glad I chose to be blunt.
Another fellow had the most amazing troubles putting on his gloves. It didn't matter whether the gloves were latex, nitrile, or plastic. His hands would begin to sweat the moment he picked gloves out of the box. We teased him - told him he'd need to begin putting his gloves on ten minutes ahead of the draw. He was so good natured about it, too. At his final practical, I hit upon a solution for him; you see, there will be some patients who will watch that struggle to put gloves on and they'll think he'll have trouble with the draw if he can't even put on his gloves. However, at his practical, I noticed he was looking over the sample requisition while he struggled with the gloves. Voila! There's the clue. I told him to begin putting his gloves on while looking over the req. The patients will think he's being slow putting on gloves because he's reading at the same time. It'll work.
My co-instructor and I routinely put a "free" question on exams. On the final, we asked what we could do to improve future classes. Most times when we do this, we read that the students had fun in class, thought we were good teachers, etc. It's kind of a nice pat on the back for us, and an easy point for the student.
One student's response, though, made me sad. She's a single mom, fairly bright, but she's one of those who is struggling to find a way off welfare after a lifetime of growing up within the system. And, the common sense just isn't clicking for her. She suggested that we have more classes each week, for example, have class five days a week instead of two. She felt that her life was just too much of a struggle when she had to work at her job, raise her family and go to school two nights a week. She felt that if she could go to school five nights a week, it would be far better. Other things happened during the semester that indicated that she found it easier to make excuses to avoid things rather than meeting challenges head on. We're afraid she'll follow the same pattern for clinicals that she did for class. We're afraid she'll show up late for class every night, or be unreliable in other ways. She does a good job in labs. We're hoping she'll surprise us.
My co-instructor and I went out for dinner afterwards. Good food, good conversation and alcohol did much to relieve the stress of the semester. We should probably make an effort to drink more often during the semester!
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As I walked from the parking ramp to the final night of class, I stopped to enjoy the sun coming through the walkway for a bit. I decided to take a couple of pictures from the skywalk to show you.
This has been a good day for this blog. I mentioned a post in AD's comments section and though I wouldn't have thought it, a whole lot of folks came by to visit. It really surprised me - I didn't think people went visiting so much unless someone was mentioned within a post. So, thanks, AD! I appreciate the visitors. Hope they found enough of interest to come back now and again!
It's time to find my way to a more horizontal place in the world. Only two more days till my weekend off. I'll gratefully sleep till I wake up those two days!
Talk to you all soon.
Kate
2 comments:
You really have been busy! You need a good break.
Loved the pictures. What a beautiful doll house!
The grounds look like a lovely spot to spend some quiet time, great pics btw.
I'm glad you're finally getting a couple of days to rest!
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