Snippet from My Journal: What My Nursing Students Need to Know Part II

...Now I begin to question why nursing students are being "enslaved" and muzzled by these people who consider themselves as know-it-all, condescending gods. I wonder why a single text message could actually make these pathetic puppets scram out of the classroom and leave their "minor" subject teachers in the middle of the discussion. Some students don't even bother to say "Excuse me sir/ma'am, may I go out?" Talk about breeding!

To my mind, the problem does not lie on the nursing students themselves. I reckon that all these ka-cheapan boil down to the policies that feed these hapless children the idea that nursing is the lifeblood of everything--the course that would alleviate and elevate every person's dream--that is to go abroad, to earn a lot of money, to build a ginormous house, etc. Goodness, we have three nurses in the family and yet we cannot even afford to renovate our literally dirty kitchen. The policies being imposed upon these students make them shudder like wet kittens: Incident Report/Extension for wearing clinical uniform in public churches (does that mean, even in church, or even passing by the park?), Extension for being late to duty, or failed to bring a scotch tape or any material they consider as "survival kit", and all those stupid grounds that could really make the nursing students shake to their bones. The hell I care about their policies.

Aside from IR and Extension, nursing students are too afraid to get deloaded. It's too much of a load for them, that's why they consider their grades as mannahs from heaven. But not for me. Being too concerned about grades manifests a materialistic attitude to the point of being "cheap", especially when a student gets the nerve to question a teacher why s/he is given a low grade when if fact his or her IQ is even lower than the grade s/he deserves. In case of my nursing students, they would even complain why they get 78 in English, and yet they barely pass their NCM and Pharmacology. Is it because they consider English or Literature as "minor" , and they expect a higher grade from these subjects that would not even make them learn how to insert catheter to a patients' penis or pull an infant from a mother's vagina?

The truth is, and I guess this proves a fact, that a grade could make or break a nursing student's life. A grade is a passport, as valuable as getting a visa or acquiring a green card. My students are adept in that. Ask their textbooks and handouts.