I have had many teachers throughout my life that I’ve always
thought of fondly. Each one had their own characteristics that especially stood
out to me. Whether they were funny,
kind, or passionate about the subject they were teaching, something about them
grabbed my attention and didn’t let go. Joseph was one of the teachers. I had
him for NSG 120, which is like a “foundations in nursing” course. Students take it their first quarter, along
with NSG 121 and nursing math (MAT 109). I liked Joseph because he seemed to be a
little off of the beaten path. He lived in a town about 30 minutes away from
campus that is known for its liberal vibe and its easy going attitude. He told us stories about his various nursing
gigs. The story that sticks out the clearest in my mind is the time that he was
telling us about being a Hospice nurse, and that when the patients were dying
and in incredible amounts of pain, Hospice nurses would typically turn their
backs and pretend that the massive cloud in the room wasn’t caused by marijuana
smoke. I liked that he was compassionate
(or so I thought) and that he lived in a town that embraced people from all
walks of life. The thing I liked the MOST about him was that if you got a
question wrong but could prove your answer, you could get your point back. His
rationale was that sometimes instructors make mistakes or that sometimes
students come up with rationales that the instructors didn’t think about. He
said that “C” was for “continue” and that sometimes you would want a nurse who
got C’s in school to take care of you because sometimes the A students have
just memorized the facts and couldn’t apply the content to real life.
After the course ended, I was devastated. I talked to my
friend *R at work who was also in the nursing program. When I started the
program, *R was one quarter ahead of me, so I always went to her for advice or
tips. She suggested that I talk to
Joseph and I thought that it was a good idea because he was the first person I
talked to after I found out that the math teacher couldn’t count. He was very
apologetic and referred me to the chairperson. I really thought that he would
be able to help me.
I and two of my peers
scheduled meetings with Joseph. We wanted to go as a group to the meeting, but
instead were granted meetings individually. The purpose of my meeting was to
discuss testing practices and the inability of students to ask questions during
the test. My peers wanted to voice their concerns about the instructor. I was
the first one to meet with Joseph and was scheduled for December 7th,
2011.
Upon arrival, I saw that he had pulled my file. I wasn’t
quite worried yet. I started out the meeting by thanking him for meeting me and
then went on to explain why I was there: I had a safety concern about what was
being taught in one of the courses, and that I would like to show how some of
the test questions were vague or hard to read. I went on to tell him that the Disaster
Preparedness instructor was teaching students that if someone is to get any
kind of chemical in their eyes, they
should rinse the substance out for 10-15 seconds, up to a minute. I told him
that I thought that it was dangerous to teach students , citing that the CDC,
Poison Control, Mayo Clinic, ect. say to rinse for at least 10-15 minutes, if
not longer. He looked bored. He had his head resting on his fist and stared
down at the table for a minute before speaking. Then he said something to the
effect of, “Okay, what’s next?” I was really confused… why wasn’t this a big
deal and why isn’t anyone trying to correct the issue?
I went on to voice my
concerns about the test questions and the testing format and asked if I could have
the opportunity to point out some questions that were not as clear as they
could be. He ignored my request and
opened my file, criticizing whatever he saw fit along the way. It was really
hard to hear someone talk about how stupid you are when you’re trying to be
respectful and keep your mouth shut
instead of ripping the person’s face off. I tried to defend myself while he was berating
me for my grade in NSG 222, but he turned it into me being a whiny student and
said that I was trying to blame my instructor because I failed the course. He said, "You get C's (above 80%), there are some B's mixed in there. I mean, you're just an average student. So you're an average student and you're telling me that a tenured professor is wrong?" Was
he listening to me at all? I said, “This has nothing to do with Molly. She even
agreed with me on the quality of a lot of the test questions. In fact, there were three questions that she
said she was 99% sure that I would get my points back on. I didn’t get those
points back. If I had gotten those three
points back, I would be asking to prove my rationale for the remaining few
needed to pass the course. I’m only here to let you know that many of the
students in this program struggle with the questions in Cardiac (NSG 222)”. His
response? “So... what you're saying is that the questions are wrong because you failed". I said, "No, there were questions in 122 that had the wrong answer. One time, I pointed out an N-CLEX question out of the book that was on our test word-for-word. I asked Tammy if I could have my points back and she said, "Probably not". "Oh, well in that case we can just call Molly and have her come in to
look at these questions with us. I’m pretty sure that she’s on campus today”. His tone was sarcastic and cruel, and I
started to tear up as he rolled over to his desk so that he could pretend to
look for Molly’s extension number. He was successful in his tacky approach in
getting me to decline having Molly come in and he knew it. Instead of dropping it,
he continued to try and badger me into having Molly come in. I wasn’t afraid
that I wouldn’t be able to prove my point; I just already knew what the result
would be. It would be a 2 against 1
situation with me being the one hanging my head in shame and embarrassment. I
told him that it would just be a waste of everyone’s time and that she would
have given me the points back during the quarter if she wanted to and that it
would disrespectful of me to question her in front of her peer. He called me
paranoid. Seriously? At that point, I
was trying to prevent the tears in my eyes from falling and I saw a group of
papers hung on the walls with instructors names put into groups. I almost had a heart attack when I saw
Joseph, Molly, Mary and Roxanne all in the same group. Fantastic, I thought. I
had went to the chairperson previously about Mary not being able to count, I just had
Molly, and I was pretty sure that Roxanne wasn’t too fond of me, either.
At that point I decided to end the meeting as quickly as I
could. I couldn’t take it anymore. Tears were now flowing in full force and I had
been embarrassed to the point of wanting to find the nearest bridge I could
find. I felt dead inside. Before this meeting, I was so sure that he would be
reasonable and hear me out. What in the Hell happened here?
Next Post- Reinstatement?
For me?
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