Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Taking Stock

This is the second week of my Direct Entry Master's Nursing program, and I've been cranking out the work, most of which is reading, but also some Blackboard quizzes.

From an educational perspective,  much has changed  for me over the past year. As of last January, I'd never taken a Chemistry course (not even in high school) and had managed to avoid most Science courses altogether, with the rationale that I was "not good" at them.

This outmoded reasoning  was once espoused by the same person who thought she was bad at math and couldn't do Algebra. Beginning with a requirement - in order to finish my Bachelor's degree in Texas- to take College Algebra, those beliefs were successfully challenged. Two years later, the first teaching job I was offered entailed that I teach Algebra II, previously my worst subject in high school. As it was my only offer, I took the plunge.

A couple of aphorisms about teaching: one is that you must only stay one day ahead of your students; the other is that when you know something well enough to teach it, you have mastered the subject. Somehow by  maintaining a one day lead on my students (class preparation being the bane of the novice teacher's existence) I did manage to learn Algebra II better than I ever had as a student.  Occasionally a student would lob in a question or present a novel approach to a problem that threw me, that made me question all my heretofore rock solid assumptions of the subject knowledge. Those students engendered my enduring respect and admiration for their fresh approaches, though not without some sweaty palm moments as I struggled to either understand their point or endeavored to answer the question. " So Josh, if I understand you correctly, what you're really saying is..." as I ad-libbed, playing for time and praying for inspiration.

You'd expect that since I'd had a moderately successful run in the Math genre (one that drove me as far as Geometry and Functions and stalled, awaiting further erudition) I'd anticipate tackling Chemistry with some confidence. Sadly, once  cowed by a subject, I seem to remain in awe of it. Thus, my goal for that first high school Chemistry course (yea in January of 2009) was "to get a C or better";  rather shoddy given that I'd already attained a Master's degree in Education at the time.Perhaps its true what that say about education degrees ("they're not worth the paper they are printed on").

Knock me down with a feather, I ended up really digging stoichiometry. And here proper respect must be given to my teacher Diane Moreau, a seasoned West High School veteran whose complete confidence in her students as well as an adoration of her subject matter managed to convert me from a Chemophobe to a Chemophile. Further back pats go to my college Chem professor Chris Toher, who over two courses balanced a stimulating rapid-fire lecture style with an abiding love of the culinary arts,  managing to insert foodie metaphors and hilarious examples in the bargain. I regret that I cannot take his Organic course this spring, it would have been a treat.

Other phases in the journey of this past year included a trial by fire anointing in Anatomy and Physiology by a community college professor. Legend has it that local hospital ranks are rife with personnel who either failed him once or limped away, battered and bruised, to tell the tale. The beauty of taking his exams was that after studying somewhere between twenty and thirty hours ( longer than I'd ever prepared for anything, I who routinely read the book the night before the exam and got an A) you really knew the stuff cold. Fresh from that battle and just to ensure that I'd be up to the current challenge of  nineteen credits in my first semester of Nursing graduate school, I took sixteen credits last fall in  my nemesis content areas, Math and Science.

Last January I was looking at one year practical nursing program; I thought  that since I was a bit long in the tooth I'd get in, get out, and start by getting some experience in the field, then move up the ranks. To my consternation and surprise, I found there was no room in any LPN program within 50 miles, and the local community colleges had a two year wait  to get into their associate level RN programs. All programs had daunting lists of prerequisites - none of which I'd previously taken, and most of which I doubted I could complete within two years. The prospect of becoming a nurse after fifty seemed ever more remote.

I spent a couple months struggling with high school chem and banging my head against the wall, wondering why I was so late to awaken to the Nursing call.  Twenty-five years ago I'd first contemplated Nursing; back then they were offering enticements like a Bahamas vacation to sign up for local hospital programs. I guess there always was a shortage - that or hospital programs were beginning their death rattle, almost complete now. It mattered not, as my father talked me out of it. As if to spite him, I became a State Trooper instead. Was it irony or fate when he passed away, mid semester of last fall, necessitating that I balance a visit home to Pennsylvania and a funeral on top of what was already a daunting course load? Or did he merely reach through the fog of his own dementia from the grave with his karmic soul, a soul not present in his life, leaving me a  modest bequest that made it possible to start this program now, with all its attendant out of pocket costs (PDA $300, new laptop $680, books $780, snow tires $580) before the first tuition loan is even signed. And a sense of balance and coming home...priceless. I am in the right program at the right moment, though it took almost thirty years to get here. Those intervening years have taught me skills of empathy, humility, and most importantly, faith.