Study Hall

It is good, once in awhile, for a parent to get a sense of what their child is going through. I am pretty sure that adult acne was invented for this purpose.

We've been encouraging our older children to sit for the French baccalauréat, the high school exam that pretty much determines the rest of your life, amen, for a French high school student. How hard can it be? Every college student I'd ever met at university in France had passed it. There is a French lit section, so read some old books and get your written French up to snuff. Then there is the everything else section: math, science, history, geography, philosophy, find out where your "educational gaps" are, study a bit and you'll be fine. I know it is well beyond what the US demands of a high school graduate, but just because mothers induce labor on December 30 to have their babies qualify for school at 21/2, fathers might go into a rage if their child is made to repeat a year and French children never have to do chores, because their whole life is about passing "le bac", doesn't mean it is unattainable in any way.

The shoe is suddenly on the other foot. I love my work, especially in the medical field, and to go further, certification is the next step to take. It will test my knowledge, help me find areas that need improving and force me to work on those "gaps." It will be a paper attestation of my abilities and expertise as well. 

I picked up an anatomy and physiology textbook, a nice, easy to read and understand book; "Barron's E-Z Anatomy and Physiology," that I am using in conjunction with the "Gray's Anatomy Coloring Book." Both of these are also great resources for high school students of anatomy and physiology. I knew this would involve other topics as well; code of ethics, confidentiality, patient advocacy, medical terminology, etc. Today I was finally able to access the website for the certification process. What I found there did not surprise me, but it did strike terror into my heart. I need to know a lot. I think I know quite a bit, but I don't think I can breeze by on experience and obtained knowledge. I will need to...study, for hours, days, weeks and months. I will need to find time in my life to buckle down and hit the books. Whether or not I believe the information to be useful, necessary, correct even or, (heaven forgive my selfish spirit), interesting, I will need to learn it by heart in order to succeed at this particular exam. Well, nothing teaches quite so well as example, but let me empathize with my children and students everywhere for a moment; I'm feeling the heat too!