Fall to your Training
Oct. 14th, 2022 04:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sorcyressA/N: I wrote this last night, and then forgot to post it. Also, I had incredibly vivid nightmares/dreams last night, which it only just now occurred to me might be adrenaline-bleed from the events in this post.
I forget where I originally picked up the phrase (reddit?) but it's been an important principle of my life for the last few years:
Today a student in my last class had a grand mal seizure and left the school on a stretcher (mostly responsive by then, but long enough seizure that school nurse wanted her checked out at the actual hospital). I was told by the school nurse and one of the EMTs that it seemed like I did (almost) everything right. My training, as patchwork as it has been, is awesome and working for me.
(the almost is because I sent a runner-student downstairs to the dean instead of just calling, and then when I was on the phone I gave the room number but forgot to mention the wing. Room number should be enough, but in an emergency it's hard to remember "oh yeah, 30s and 40s are a-wing classrooms")
Anyways, I kick ass and get to eat ice cream tonight and also thank god the students in that class are AMAZING (while I'm in the back of the room with seizure-student's head in my lap, I say "hey OtherStudent, can you go to the next slide on the smartboard and lead the challenge problem there" and the whole rest of the class worked together and actually did it. Not to brag, but when a medical emergency was happening in my classroom, the other students were able to come together and refocus themselves on math!
And yes, on the one hand, it's weird and distressing that they should have to respond to an emergency with "pretend everything's normal, la la la" but on the other hand, I was able to remain calm and be calming towards the students --I said, loudly and firmly, something along the lines of "this is very scary, but it is something that happens to Student sometimes, and the nurse will be here soon, I'll stay with her and you can do your work while we wait". I was able to keep the room on an even keel, and the students did not do any weird panic behavior or crowd the seizurestudent or anything.)
Alsoalso thank god that the only thing after that class was my prep. I didn't do any prep work, but I sure appreciated the chance to breathe and process and call my mom. My boss offered me tea, which was sweet of her but unnecessary. After a twenty minute "so this just happened" with mommio, I felt okay enough myself to go and tell side-boss, blissfully unaware on the other end of the school building.
SideBoss's response was "I'm so sorry this happened to you, but also I'm glad it happened to *you*" which is about the best compliment I could possibly receive on the topic. Not that I think other teachers would've done a BAD job handling the situation, but I know --and I think SideBoss can tell-- that this is the sort of thing I am actually pretty GOOD at.
And of course, the weird part of the universe is that I'm just going to go back to school tomorrow morning and put the desks back in order and...go ahead and lead my classes! Maybe we pass around a "get well soon" card in that one class? I dunno.
Please keep finding the training you need so that when you have to fall back on it, it works for you.
~Sor
MOOP!
I forget where I originally picked up the phrase (reddit?) but it's been an important principle of my life for the last few years:
In an emergency, we do not rise to the level of our aspirations, we fall to the level of our training.
Today a student in my last class had a grand mal seizure and left the school on a stretcher (mostly responsive by then, but long enough seizure that school nurse wanted her checked out at the actual hospital). I was told by the school nurse and one of the EMTs that it seemed like I did (almost) everything right. My training, as patchwork as it has been, is awesome and working for me.
(the almost is because I sent a runner-student downstairs to the dean instead of just calling, and then when I was on the phone I gave the room number but forgot to mention the wing. Room number should be enough, but in an emergency it's hard to remember "oh yeah, 30s and 40s are a-wing classrooms")
Anyways, I kick ass and get to eat ice cream tonight and also thank god the students in that class are AMAZING (while I'm in the back of the room with seizure-student's head in my lap, I say "hey OtherStudent, can you go to the next slide on the smartboard and lead the challenge problem there" and the whole rest of the class worked together and actually did it. Not to brag, but when a medical emergency was happening in my classroom, the other students were able to come together and refocus themselves on math!
And yes, on the one hand, it's weird and distressing that they should have to respond to an emergency with "pretend everything's normal, la la la" but on the other hand, I was able to remain calm and be calming towards the students --I said, loudly and firmly, something along the lines of "this is very scary, but it is something that happens to Student sometimes, and the nurse will be here soon, I'll stay with her and you can do your work while we wait". I was able to keep the room on an even keel, and the students did not do any weird panic behavior or crowd the seizurestudent or anything.)
Alsoalso thank god that the only thing after that class was my prep. I didn't do any prep work, but I sure appreciated the chance to breathe and process and call my mom. My boss offered me tea, which was sweet of her but unnecessary. After a twenty minute "so this just happened" with mommio, I felt okay enough myself to go and tell side-boss, blissfully unaware on the other end of the school building.
SideBoss's response was "I'm so sorry this happened to you, but also I'm glad it happened to *you*" which is about the best compliment I could possibly receive on the topic. Not that I think other teachers would've done a BAD job handling the situation, but I know --and I think SideBoss can tell-- that this is the sort of thing I am actually pretty GOOD at.
And of course, the weird part of the universe is that I'm just going to go back to school tomorrow morning and put the desks back in order and...go ahead and lead my classes! Maybe we pass around a "get well soon" card in that one class? I dunno.
Please keep finding the training you need so that when you have to fall back on it, it works for you.
~Sor
MOOP!
no subject
on 2022-10-15 04:07 pm (UTC)No, they won't. And your situation tells a story of why. I imagine that if the problem were only that a student were having a seizure, a person with less preparation may have been able to muddle through it by calling for help. But the reason it's a crisis is that there are so many other moving pieces— like a classroom full of kids who might descend into panic and chaos over what's happening. Preparation is how you were able to keep it all together for everybody simultaneously. And that's the difference in outcomes between "I read a thing and know what to do, intellectually," and "I've drilled on this."
We sweat in training so we don't bleed in battle.
no subject
on 2022-10-15 10:48 pm (UTC)(Also, awesome job. And right on about training.)