My Senior Practicum was spent at the local hospital. The place where I was born, the place where my O.I. first surfaced. Now pretend Social Worker.
Much different than nursing home Social Work.My supervisor this time was Jean, an older lady with beautifully styled gray hair. She had twenty years experience in the field. She did not have a degree. She was hired back when it wasn't needed .Her knowledge and networking skills were tremendous. She knew all the resources in the area, phone numbers and information by heart. She oozed common sense, which is much of what Social Work is about. What I was learning in the classroom was important, the different theories and such. But until you actually get out in the field and do it, applying those theories and using basic common sense and sensitivity-that's where real Social Work begins.
Jean was retiring later that year. I was her very last student intern.
Social Work in a hospital truly is different and unique from what I experienced in my first internship. Different population, different age groups, different cases. Great experience to grow out of my comfort zone, not only as a Social Worker but as a person too.
Some days I worked on the hospital units, helping families and patients. Much of it was discharge planning, setting up needs for home, such as a visiting nurse or a wheelchair for home. It was fast-paced and it felt good helping people go home. I always loved going home when I was in the hospital.
Some days I would work in the Emergency Room. That may have been the toughest part of the job, meeting families after an accident or during a crisis. Not everyone could do this very emotional and challenging part of the job. I wasn't sure if i cut do it. but there was only one way to find out.
One of my first cases was talking to a young teen aged girl who had tried to commit suicide. Only fourteen, she had swallowed nine-two aspirin. Luckily they found her in her bedroom, rushed her to the E.R., where they pumped her stomach and saved her life. It was my task to find out why she did it.
Entering the room I was probably more scared than Lisa was. The pretty girl with the long red hair looked at me suspiciously. She asked who I was, and I replied "a Social Worker here to talk." She groaned "Oh, you're only a Social Worker? I thought you were a Psychiatrist."
Only a Social Worker? I was defeated even before I began. It became worse when she found out I wasn't even a "real" Social Worker, just a student. I was honest about my internship but maybe I didn't need to be that honest. I was learning.
I admitted to Lisa that I was scared too. We had some common ground there. After that she opened up to me a bit. Maybe she felt sorry for me. Who knows?
We chatted a while and I got out of her that she had overdosed because of a forbidden romance. Her next-door neighbor was twice her age. She would visit him to" do homework and watch television" but when her parents forbade her to see him anymore she took the pills.
Life was worth living. She was young. Hard to see now but she had her whole life ahead of her, guys included. She was only fourteen but I understood her situation, no matter what the age. She really was lucky to be alive. I couldn't fix her romance problems. I had no magical answers. She really didn't want my advice anyway. Her parents wouldn't listen and her peers didn't understand. So I mostly listened during my twenty or so minutes talking to Lisa.
Nothing heroic or special on my part. I listened intently, not casually. And I cared. That was just me, not necessarily a skill. But it worked.
In the end, I wrote up my findings, discussed them with Jean, and referred the girl and her folks for counseling once discharged. It was up to them to follow-through.
I never forgot her name, and several years later I paged through our local newspaper and smiled when I saw her name listed as one who graduated from high school. I was glad she didn't give up.
With each success I gained more confidence. I worked with alcoholics, drug addicts, helped patients with hospital insurance issues, you name it. Great experience. I still loved the nursing home atmosphere more because I saw the residents every day, whereas a patient at the hospital may be a one time deal. But the knowledge I was gaining there would prove to be invaluable down the road.
Like at the community college I was breezing through most of my classes at West Chester U. They were more difficult but I took a knack to my Social Work and Psychology classes especially. They were important to my career so I was glad I was doing so well.
There were a pair of required courses I still needed to take: a language and my old nemeses, Math. I didn't dread the language as much as I did the Math.
I really wanted to take Sign Language as my requirement. I thought that sign would come in handy in my profession ( and indeed, there were times when Sign Language would've been important to know). I would encounter quite a few clients and residents who were hard of hearing or could only read lips.
Sadly, the classes were only offered in downtown Philadelphia. Lori didn't want to drive into the city twice a week, and I couldn't blame her. So we both decided to settle for Spanish instead. (I could always study Sign Language at night at a local technical school).
I studied Spanish in high school, although I did forget a lot of it over the years. If you don't use it, you lose it, especially in my case. At least I did know the basics.
Spanish One was a stroll in the park. Simple words and phrases. Spanish Two would be harder, learning different tenses. Spanish Two was offered during the summer. Fifteen weeks worth of Spanish crammed into five weeks. I wanted to graduate on time, so both Lori and I signed up for the summer course. It was a sizzling summer, but I still looked like a ghost. I didn't have time for a vacation or laying out in the backyard.
So there we were, five days a week, every morning for four hours, all during July. The professor was friendly- a short, chubby guy with a full beard. He reminded me of Pancho Villa, at least pictures I had seen of the Mexican bandit. But he was a really nice guy, often strolling into class wearing Bermuda shorts, red socks and brightly colored, flowered shirts.
On our first day he said,"Look, I don't want to be here as much as you don't want to be here. We all would rather be on the beach. But we are here, so let's make the best of it.'
It was really hard work, the hardest so far at West Chester. A test every Friday. Sink or swim. Learn it fast or don't. There was no in-between. But while the rest of the world was on vacation we became a tight-knit group of survivors in that class of roughly thirty or so students, bonding together. Luckily Professor Villa kept things lively and light.
That was my life for five weeks that summer; go to class, come home, work at the nursing home, study at night, then back at it the next day. I only took one course that summer so I ate, drank and slept Spanish.
If I had stopped to think about the frantic pace of the course I never would have gotten through it. So I didn't stop and think. I just did it.
People dropped out as we sweat it out in class each morning. But we hung in there and slowly the weeks melted away.
Wasn't I supposed to meet Jill again this summer? Yes. There was even talk of me going to Norway this time. School also kept her there, as school anchored me in the States. We would meet again later when we could. Such was life.
When the dust cleared I ended up with an A in the summer course. Spanish Three loomed ahead in the fall semester, the one course that was needed to meet the language requirement. I heard horror stories about the course. I wasn't too worried. With a little hard work I would breeze through that as well.
I was wrong. Spanish Three turned out to be a nightmare. Much more difficult lessons and assignments. We were to only speak in Spanish after the first day of class. We were only writing in Spanish. Different tenses, even more elaborate phrases.
Spanish Lab, which we attended once a week, was the toughest part of the course. I didn't have trouble reading or writing the language. But I couldn't seem to catch it when I tried to listen to the words. The language tended to be spoken rather quickly, so listening to Spanish and trying to decipher words, answer questions and make sense of it all was a major challenge for me. I wanted to say "slow down" but could not.
To make matters worse, the professor was by far the most strict, boarding on wacko guy I ever encountered since starting college. Tall, rail-thin with bad spiked hair and equally bad goatee, he was a real tyrant in class. His name? Professor Moriarty.
Screaming, ranting and raving, he laid down the law the first day of class. He demanded perfection and wouldn't tolerate anything less. He wasn't above ridicule, and often brought the female students to tears by calling them "stupid' or making fun of their answers. Even the guys in class quaked and stuttered, on the verge of breaking down. Odd to see big, macho footballers ready to cry.
Nowadays if a teacher did that he would be reported and suspended for abuse. But this was the mid-80s so we didn't know any better. He put up with no nonsense and no excuses and we put up with him. Earning this grade would be tough. as he made it clear from the start that he didn't give many A's or B's in his world.
One day he walked into class with a large yardstick, cracking it against his desk and threatening to use it if we didn't study hard. He treated us like children. I understood about motivation but this was ridiculous. Yet we stayed, mainly because the class fit our schedule. There didn't seem a way out.
Yes, Lori and I had heard rumors about Proifessor Moriarty before that semester. Why in the world would we ever take the class, other students wondered, when we talked in the hall before class? Everyone dreaded the guy so his reputation was known on campus. It sure turned out to be a challenge, and after a while it was survival of the fittest. The faint-hearted dropped out like flies. From thirty studen ts to twelve in the first few weeks of the fall semester.
The Professor seemed to lighten up just a bit as he was in danger of losing everyone, so maybe he eased up a bit in fear of his superiors asking why the sudden drop-outs from his Spanish Three class?. But he kept up the rough exterior til the end.
It did make the survivors study harder. His pacing in c;lass was not needed and annoying as hell. Everyone was constantly on edge. Never knew where he would stop, hovering over a shoulder and suddenly challenge us with a question.
In a strange way I think he liked me.. He called me "Smith," and didn't treat me any differently but at least he didn't ridicule me.
"Smith!" he challenged. "I want to hear you roll your R's.. Do it, Smith! Roll the R's!" he said in broken English.
Damn I tried but my tongue wouldn't cooperate. But at least I was saved from the dreaded stick.
"Smith..what am I to do with you?" is all he would say before walking away. I dodged another bullet.
I was actually doing pretty well, surprisingly so, really getting into it, even watching Spanish cable TV channels at home. Refreshing to actually understand what they were saying.
I constantly reviewed my notes and flashcards. Lori and I endlessly quizzed each other in the car during our commutes. It was as though our other classes didn't exist. It got so bad I forgot myself and wrote out a birthday card in Spanish by mistake. I was brainwashed.
I think we all wanted to prove to this jerk we weren't quitters. We were still there as Christmas neared. The final exam loomed, the last hurdle to freedom from Professor Moriarty.
The final covered the entire four month course. A truly make or break test. I earned a solid B so far, so unless I totally bombed the final, I was hoping to at least pass.
When we entered the classroom to take the exam that fateful morning at exactly 9:00, it was dead silence, like we were all doing the last mile on the way to the electric chair. We tried to stay positive and encourage each other in the hall before entering. Deep down inside I was scared to death, yet fairly confident that I knew my stuff.
Life would go on if we failed this one class. We would all graduate and live happily ever after- wouldn't we?
Worst of all, for those teetering on the pass-fail fence, with graduation only six months away, having to repeat the course would be the worse possible outcome, maybe even with the evil professor himself.
After we got settled in and Professor Moriarty marched into the room, dressed all in black as usual, a strange miracle occurred.
He actually broke out into a wide grin, and before the exam started, he offered everyone dough nuts and coffee, encouraging us to come upfront and help ourselves. Take a crawler back to your desk to munch on while you take maybe the most important exam of your pitiful life.
He was a different guy this morning. The tension eased. What was up?
I suppose his new-found kindness was a combination of things: sickness in the class, a student involved in a car accident a few weeks earlier, and the fact we were twelve of the most hard working students that were ever assembled in one group. Or maybe he wasn't such a bad guy after all?
Plus it didn't hurt when the class took him out to lunch one afternoon. We went to a local Mexican restaurant , got a few drinks into the professor, and he loosened up quite a bit, even calling us by our first names for a change.
The final exam wasn't so bad, maybe because the answers came so easy. Or maybe we had psyched ourselves out so much. Whatever, his tactics ultimately worked. I saw him in a new light. He made us work hard and in the end it paid off. He made sure we would never forget Spanish again- or him.
As we exited, there he was, standing outside the door, waiting for each student to come out. He shook my hand, smiling, and said in a sincere voice what a pleasure it was having me in his class. I thanked him for not playing favorites, for treating me as rotten as he did everyone else ( I left out the rotten part).
"I wasn't the best student," I admitted to Professor Moriarty, "but I tried really hard." That pretty much summed up my entire college experience.
He turned out to be a pussycat after all. I earned that B, and was happy for it, I took the challenge, accepted it, didn't quit, and victory never tasted as sweet.
Lori and i let out a yell as we left the building. like we had conquered Mount Everest. We watched the other remaining students filter out, all exhausted and relieved, wishing them a relaxing holiday break. Lori had a smoke in the car, as if she just had sex.
There would be one final challenge looming ahead in the last semester before graduation. The big, ugly monster which stood in front of me and my diploma - Math. Such a small word, such a daunting task ahead.
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