Way back, at the very start of this little adventure called my entire adult life, I was told something that stuck with me. I was told this same thing by several people, people I looked up to and respected, and still do to this day. It was said with the best of intentions and was the understanding and wisdom of the day. It was also designed to be a badge of honor. It went something like this:
“I passed my EMT test! I’m a real EMT!”
“That’s great kid. Now, all that shit you learned in class, forget it. You don’t know nothin’. Go learn it on the street.”
And I was pretty quickly shown that was true. So, I did learn it on the street. So, we’re good, right? There’s no story to tell?
Not really.
There certainly are elements of being good at your job that you have to learn through experience. There are also things that you learn in class that don’t really work in the real world. There’s also the reality that, “In theory there is no difference between practice and theory. In practice, there is.” (We’ll dig more into that statement another time.) Experience is a fantastic teacher, but sometimes the lessons experience teaches us aren’t healthy, or helpful. If the right lessons can be taught in the class, especially that class that is the basic entry into the field, such as the police academy, firefighter 1 or EMT course, we can serve our responders, and the people who those responders serve, in a much better way.
What do I mean? Mindset. I’ll offer three big problems with “learn it on the street”. The first thing the phrase “go learn it on the street” does is enforce a hierarchy of value to the organization, with the rookie at the bottom. While experience has its place and value, so does a beginner’s mindset. Asking why we do something a certain way can be a powerful tool for improvement. As soon as that grizzled, 20-year veteran answers with, “because that’s the way we’ve always done it”, you know there is an opportunity for improvement. If you can explain the actual reason this way is the best way, or required by statute or policy, you at least have that. If you can’t, take a step back and look at the situation, the kid may be on the right track. Even if there is a policy, is that policy or practice still serving you the best?
Second, what was taught to the rookie in the academy may actually work better than how you learned it 20 years ago. The science may have been updated, society may have changed, the technology certainly has. Do you insist on buying a car the same model year as your first car, or do you enjoy getting the new technology that comes with newer cars. If newer technology in cars can be good for you, newer technology in your industry, including the science of how we think, feel and process, can be good for you as well.
Third, the beginner’s mindset is more open to ideas and information and that can be critical when we are caring for others. I recently had a conversation with a person who, after finding out I had been an EMT for 25 years, related this story to me.
“When I was a kid, my mom had a chronic illness and we regularly had to assist with moving her when she couldn’t walk. Occasionally we had to call the ambulance to take her to the hospital when her condition flared up. Whenever the medics walked into the house we would try explain how we normally moved her, like getting her up out of her chair or bed. Sometimes, relatively often, one of the medics would say, ‘Look, I’ve been doing this for 20 years,’ and we knew our mother was going to have a negative experience and end up getting hurt.” Then he asked me, “Why is it always 20 years when people won’t listen to us?”
There isn’t a singular answer to that question, and to be sure, many medics (EMTs and all care providers) do listen and follow the guidance the family or patient gives. But for those that refuse to listen because they have been “doing this for 20 years”, there is likely some ego, fixed mindset, decreased level of empathy or the like. Rookies, coming out of the academy are far more likely to not have those roadblocks and they will take the time to listen to the suggestions from the people in the know.
I’ll add one more reason. The elephant in the room, mental health. What I learned on the street was to become hardened, be calloused and get back in service for the next call. When I transported my first infant with intentional cigarette burns on his body no one sat down with me to talk about how my body and brain would process that and healthy things I could do during that time. After a stabbing I would get lessons in anatomy about what internal damage could have happened, but not about how to calm my emotions after being on the scene of a domestic with people yelling and bleeding, and not knowing where the next threat may be coming from. By the time I did get brought in for a critical incident stress debrief (CISD), I was already closed to the idea and acted like a prisoner the whole time. At some point, I’ll write about how that worked out for me when my daughter was an infant…
What do we do about this challenge? I’ll offer a two-pronged approach. First, we look at the lessons we teach that the entry level, in the academy, and we make sure we’re providing good, relevant and up to date information and practices that are based in reality about not just the hard skills of the job, but also the mindset, empathy, emotional intelligence and servant leadership. We teach with intention to bring personal and organizational values into our conscious awareness and align them.
Second, we bring the same training to people already in the field, along with the specific understanding that they will influence everyone coming out of the academies and entering the field by how we model our practice. If you’re not still driving an ’86 Mazda and if you’ve ever gotten mad when someone else said, “that’s the way we’ve always done it” don’t tell the rookie to, “Forget what you learned in class. Go learn it on the street.” Instead, take the opportunity to explore a beginner’s mindset. You can learn from them and share your experience and help them build their own.
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