Missing My Calling
January 11, 2026 – First week back to school
A return back to school… with classes on Monday, January 5, 2026 and Thursday, January 8, 2026. My Wednesdays class does not start until next week. I had plenty of meetings this week and I am anticipating more to come next week. It was an excellent jump into the new year with a deep dive into my teaching term with so much more on the go. One of those things I had to tackle this week was filling out my first FRASP for work, that is a Field Risk Assessment and Safety Plan form. I tried to do this last year, but I felt so flooded. It’s a shift in practices at the university and taking students off campus has become a little more challenging, even though they are adults in our program.
It only took a few hours to fill out the form, get confused, ask a colleague for an exemplar, go back to the form and do my best to complete the form. The questions seem not adjacent to taking students to a K-7 school for classes versus somewhere outdoors or at a health care facility, but this form had to be completed and I was committed to do so. The next day, I went to the university to ask teacher candidates in my class to sign the form as well in addition get signed approval from the Chair and Dean. It was a process, and admittedly, it’s 99% complete. I have one more student to sign the form, but I have been approved to start in-situ earning at Harwin Elementary on Monday. Yay!!
Another aspect of the FRASP is for the supervisor (aka., instructor) to have their first aid certificate. Oh my goodness… I needed to get this done before Monday’s class… and when I was getting the formed signed, it was Thursday. No pressure, right? I looked online for Basic First Aid courses in Prince George. I had to try. And yes, there were a couple of classes I could take. It turns out that they program has changed since I had taken it last (i.e., 2 decades ago) and it’s now called Basic First Aid versus Level 1. Nonetheless, I signed up for the Saturday class knowing that that I had to pass for the FRASP, in-situ learning at Harwin, and compliance to my course syllabus. No pressure.
Many, many years ago… I used to be the first aid attendant at my high school. I did that role for years and had to be trained in Level 2 first aid (now called Standard First Aid). Back then, I did quite well in those first aid classes. They used to be a week long and I got time off work to train. Now, that course is only 2-days long and I can imagine, very crammed. We practiced a tonne in those courses, and what I had appreciated about first aid was the logic, the protocol, and the sequence of events that are needed to save someone’s life as the first responder. I like the rigour. Maybe I missed my calling?
Sadly, I was never good at biology. I might attribute that to my high school and university experiences in biology. High school involved rapid note taking via the ongoing scroll of the overhead notes (and the ink was so faint, I could never read it. Or the politician who said, here’s the textbook and there will be weekly tests on the subject matter. Or the professor that talked about dirt. Truth be told, I did not like dissecting a cow’s eye ball, a preserved fetus pig, or freshly killed rat. Not a fan. I like the care aspect of first aid, and maybe making a difference (hence, education). Even when I took care of my mom on her last days, many health care workers asked me if I was a nurse. I said, “no, I am a teacher.”
Anyway, I took the Basic First Aid Course in Prince George. From 8:30am to 4:30pm on my “be a person” day (aka., Saturday). I noticed the length of time of the day. It’s very much like my classes on Monday… so, it is possible. Hmm… but admittedly, an endurance test and there was a lot of content. We did not do a lot of practice compared to what I had remembered from Level 2 decades ago, but I needed a 70% pass on the test, which was multiple choice and held at the end of the day (i.e., 4pm). There was no pre-reading, and the course was primarily direct instruction, PowerPoint, the odd reference to the books, and some demos and practice. I was not sure how I would do on the test.
There were so many acronyms and things to remember. As mentioned, biology was not one of “my things” because of all the names, terminology, Latin… and I know that my brain can be a sieve. I really tried to pay attention during the day. Some things were repeated, but you never know how much you know, until you know. We got the test form at 4pm. I am such a slow reader. I did not want to miss, misread, or misunderstand anything. I think I was on #10 out of 30 and people were finished and getting their test marked. I was trying to self-regulate and focus on the test. I was the last or second to last to finish with 9 questions I was unsure of. In the end, I got 30/30. Woohoo!!