Students I Respect

My students are usually a pretty mixed bag, in terms of demographics. A lot of them are returning to school after an extended absence, and since this quarter I am teaching a pre-requisite course for nursing majors, I have a whole lot more returning students. It's really interesting to note that as a whole, these students are some of the best I've ever had the privilege of teaching. They are motivated by life experiences to seek a better job and life for themselves and their families. They work hard--many of them are working a full-time job and going to school, and/or also being parents to kids ranging in age from 9 months to 17.

One of my students works a night job cleaning offices. She has a nine year old son at home, her husband works the day shift, and she attends classes during the daytime. I can't imagine how much sleep she gets each night, but I'm betting it's not much.

Another student just welcomed her husband home from Iraq after a year's deployment. She has been playing single mom to 4 kids (ages 2 to 9) while also working as a doula and childbirth instructor. She took off a week and a half to spend time with her husband and her family, and came back today, made up a lab she missed, handed in the lab work by the end of the day, and also handed in the homework from last week. She's going to have this week caught up by Friday and will be all set to take the midterm with everyone else on Monday. Wow.

Another student is the single mom of two kids, 6 and 11, and is currently unemployed. She's enrolled full-time in the nursing pre-requisites at my college, and she is also enrolled full-time at another college training to be a medical transcriptionist. Her plan is to work her way through the nursing program as a medical transcriptionist, supporting her family, until she's done and can be employed in nursing. AND, she is in the process of building her own house through Habitat For Humanity. Wow.

I worked through college part-time, and I took "more than full" courseloads for 2.5 years. I thought that was kind of impressive, but 12 years on I am thinking that I had it easy. I wasn't married, I wasn't fully supporting myself with my job, I had supportive parents, and I had no kids. Yeah, that was the easy way to do college. This path that a lot of my students are taking? I would classify that as the hard way. But they are MOTIVATED. And they are all going to make awesome nurses when they're done. I'm privileged to teach these folks.

Cool Jobs

On our way to daycare this morning, we got stopped at a red light next to a cement truck, which inspired much pointing and shouting, "Mama, twuck! Seh-mahn twuck!" from DS and a discussion of how the cement was inside the rolling drum, turning around and around until it was ready to be used. DD & DS were both vastly entertained watching the drum spin around and around, and I realized that certain jobs have a cachet for kids that is lost for grown-ups.

For example, a fire truck never fails to inspire comment from both of our kids, as do ambulances, cherry pickers, cranes, "bobbies" (any form of construction equipment, be it diggers, excavators, etc). Likewise the guys who are up in the cherry picker trimming trees or working on power lines are viewed with a certain awe by kids. Anything where the person is up high or using a big machine will never cease to be cool to little ones.

Similiarly, anyone who gets to use neat equipment or make big noises has a cool job. Even the garbage man has a cool job to kids. He drives this neat truck with a special lift on it and he gets to stop whenever he likes and use flashing lights. Ditto the street sweeper, or the schoolbus driver. Schoolbuses never fail to inspire comments, as they might be carrying other kids inside and thus are worthy of great scrutiny and speculation about where they are going. Are they coming from school, or going to school?

The fire truck and police cars at the county fair were nearly as a big a hit as the rides for our kids, I think. The police cars and motorcycles were littered with neat lights and sirens and equipment, and the fire truck has all the bells and whistles (literally) that you could imagine. All hot stuff to young children, and all the people who work in them are just cool, in a way that kids get and adults sometimes forget.

I have decided that if it's a cool job to a kid, it has to be a cool job forever. I mean, what job could be better than having little kids point at you in awe or keep a fervent watch for your vehicle while they are being towed around town by their parents? Those types of jobs can never lose their 'cool' cachet. Impressing children has to count for something even when you're old enough to be annoyed at being caught behind the street sweeper. After all, a lot of those jobs have precious few perks to adults, might as well enjoy the adulation that comes from the pint-sized perspective!

My Mother Will Never Die

I was chatting with some friends on Sunday about parenting and the difference in perspective when you are actually the parent, instead of the child. My friends are at various stages of life and their kids' ages reflect that, so it's fun to talk about what changes and what stays the same as your kiddos grow up. And one of my friend's kids was listening to our conversation. As it happens this young lady is 14 and a full-blown teenager, and after we were all chuckling about something I asked her, "I'll bet you think your parents make lots of mistakes, huh?" She just laughed (as did her mom) and I said, "You don't have to tell us, but we all know--you're going to do things differently when YOU'RE the mom, right?" She said, "Oh yeah."

LOL! How well I remember saying the same thing as a teenager. I knew exactly what my parents were screwing up with regard to my upbringing (and my siblings'), and by golly *I* would never say/do what they did! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! As proof of God's great sense of humor, here are a few things I have found myself saying which I distinctly recall swearing I would NEVER SAY as a mom.

• Do I need to stop this car and pull over?
• How many times do I have to tell you to {do X}?
• Are you listening to me?
• If you do that one more time, you'll be sorry! (talk about an empty threat...the most meaningless threat of punishment there is the unexplained punishment)
• Don't make me come in there!
• There are hungry children who would be grateful to eat that dinner. (again, totally meaningless...because any smart child will instantly offer to give it to them!)
• Because I said so, that's why.
• Stop teasing your brother. (says the woman who used to tease HER brother)
• If these toys aren't cleaned up in five minutes I'm throwing them away. (to be fair it's usually DH who says this...I put toys into time-out if they aren't tidied up)
• This is your last chance.

I know there are more which I can't remember right now. And as our kids get older, more and more old chestnuts that I used to hate hearing as a kid will be spouting forth from my lips. Is it any wonder my parents are so well entertained when they visit us? Payback is hell!