the world is your acorn

I went to try and give blood this afternoon, but was deferred due to a mosquito bite on my arm vein. The lady asking me the “is your blood good enough for us” questions saw it, then looked at my other arm, and decided she needed to consult with someone else to see if they could do it today. I was paranoid that they think I’m shooting up, since it is a weird looking mosquito bite that I’ve been scratching pretty relentlessly all week. After two more ladies came in to look at my bite and squeeze and tap my other arm, they decided they couldn’t poke the bite arm or coax the vein to the surface of my other arm. I was sent home with a gi-normous t-shirt which I tried to decline but got peer pressured into taking anyway. I hope my file isn’t red flagged with “junkie” now.

I went to a panel on the vote no on 1 issue at the medical school yesterday. It was packed, the response mostly positive, and it was neat to see how the other half lives for an hour. However, I came away with this weird feeling of dissatisfaction with education programs as compared to medical schools.

Maybe I’m generalizing, but it really seems that doctors are trained as care-takers in their schooling, not just as health professionals. When the doctors on the panel spoke they really talked to the med students as future doctors who concern themselves with not just physical health, but social justice as well. It seems obvious to me that teachers should be prepaired in the same way, with social issues as a central concern in the curriculum. However, that isn’t how it is. Future teachers are expected to be competent in disciplinary content and pedagogical strategies. Somehow the humanity of what we do is de-emphasized and forgotten along the way.

I’m sure some of the folk in the business of teacher preparation will disagree with me, but there was definitely a vibe at this medical school panel that I never get across the street in the education departments.