Basis of Fear

I guess most of my blog posts now are going to be fueled by procrastination. And in today's case, a little bit of alcohol because I think I got a bit too heavy-handed when spiking my hot chocolate tonight. Oh yeah, Momma's feeling good.

But yes, it's been a long day. I got back from tutoring and then I had to study for my physical exam assessment tomorrow. A part of me is like "Meh, it's not graded" and I feel like the longer I'm in med school, the more that part of me is winning over the perfectionist/overambitious remnants of my high school/college days.

Today, I was tutoring one of my "problem" students. Sweet kid. Funny. Charismatic. NAUGHTY. Bless this child, but she drives me up the wall 75% of the time. Some days she begs me to take her from class, other days she refuses to come. Some days she gets engaged in the reading, adds her own voices and sound effects...other days she refuses to pick up a book. Today was one of the latter days. She spent 15 minutes refusing to get in the chair. Instead, she'd walk back and forth into the book room, claiming she had to get another book because the book she had "had too many words". I allowed the first book exchange. When she got up to get the second one, I asked her to sit down. She ignored me. Went and dilly-dallied in the book room for a minute or two before coming back. By the third time, I was pretty fed up. I said "Jasmine. Please stop stalling and sit down." She ignored me. This time, she came back with "Brown Bear, Brown Bear", a book that is about...4 grade levels too easy for her.

I am more than a little frustrated at this point. I manage to convince her to read from one of the books she had brought back earlier. She read it beautifully. She got really into the book. She moo'd when the characters moo'd, she imitated the sound of the falling rain,  she crowed like a rooster. Then the book ended and she lost all interest in cooperating.

She laid her empty banana peel on my arm.

I said, "Please throw away your garbage, Jasmine."

She laid her mozzarella stick wrapper (which had been in her mouth for the last 5 minutes) on top of the banana peel.

I said, "Jasmine, this is not funny. I'm going to ask you one more time. Please throw your garbage away."

She took the mozzarella wrapper and placed it on my head.

I was 100% done.

I stood up. I said very calmly, "You're done. I'm taking you back to class."

Seeing my stony countenance, she senses something is wrong. She begs me to stay. I take her into the office and have her throw her garbage away. I walk her back to class. I don't say another word.

After this ordeal, I reflected on what I could have done better. It was clear this child had zero respect for me. I wasn't one of her teachers. I didn't work for the after school program. I realized that I had no authority over this child. Yes, I could do a countdown. Yes, I could issue ultimatums. But all of these are ultimately empty threats because I lacked the power to truly discipline her. And maybe a part of this child recognized that. I couldn't do anything to her. She didn't need to listen to me because she wasn't scared of me; she knew there would be no repercussions.

I have an assessment tomorrow. It's ungraded. I definitely haven't done my due diligence in preparing for it. I feel like my attitude toward med school now is "Is it mandatory?", and if not, I give it as little effort as required to skate by so that I can focus my energies on the things that "matter". In other words, I feel like I am going to be a terrible doctor. Much like Jasmine, my respect is built on a basis of fear. I know my Foundations of Patient Care (FPC) activities are ungraded, so I don't respect the classes as much. They're the lowest priority on a endless list of things I need to do. But unlike Jasmine, I should be old enough to recognize the latent benefits and payoffs that these learning experiences hold. I guess there's some kid left in me after all.

Anyways, back to studying. If anyone has any suggestions/tips on how to better manage rowdy kids, I'd much appreciate it. For now, I think Jasmine will be dismayed to know that, in light of her recent behavior, I have now been granted the power to call parents. BOOM. KID GON' LEARN TODAY.