The Operating Room for Teachers; why I wish I had taught like a doctor
Perhaps I am making assumptions about the medical field, as I am an educator and not in the medical profession. Besides my hours watching Grey’s Anatomy and having a mom who was a nurse-this is the closest I am going to get. Then-I stepped out of the classroom.
If we really think about the health and wellbeing of our nation’s children, it all begins and ends with literacy. There is an abundance of literature that could be cited here, but I don’t need the literature—I have been on the frontlines serving marginalized populations in urban education for over a decade.
Now, as a clinical researcher with one foot out of “the system” (and more than 15 minutes to eat lunch), I have been able to reflect on my years in the classroom, my amazing colleagues and the incredible students that have changed my life, and most importantly how systemic barriers continue to impact preventative care for children.
If given the opportunity to enter a fake operating room for a routine procedure- as an educator- my plan of action might be to collect family history, run a series of tests to gain insight into the patient’s current health status, spend time learning about the patient, meet and explain the procedure to the patient and most importantly prep for the procedure to ensure I was ready to operate with the most up to date research and evidence for best outcomes. My preparation would focus not on the routine procedure guidebook, but my knowledge and strategies taught, practiced, and applied so that when the many unpredictable variables occur, I feel confident to “go off script.”
Role reverse: As a doctor ready to enter the classroom and work with a group of students-my plan of action might be the same. Except, I wasn’t able to obtain the records of two of the students (despite many attempts), a language barrier and lack of tools to aid translation prevented me giving a form of standardized care, or in this case instruction. Then, an incomprehensive measure lead to inconclusive understandings of student learning profiles and I was given limited time to learn a brand new curriculum and 35 minutes to deliver it.
(Please note, this comparison does not reflect my understanding of the endless challenges and barriers that medical professionals encounter on a daily basis).
Maybe we pay closer attention to these outcomes because we view a medical procedure gone wrong could end in death. Maybe it is because we can visibly see the impact on treatment or lack there of.
This leads me to wish I learned to teach like a doctor so that daily procedures of instruction for children were viewed just as crucial— life and death, because for our students, especially those from historically marginalized populations-it is.
