The First Day in the Classroom
I have been trained by some of the most impressive instructors, in my short 4 year career, than I could have hoped for. In that training I have been taught how to shoot and kill a human being. I have been taught how to drive a car well beyond its abilities or even my abilities, and without crashing it. I have learned how to articulate the reason I took the freedom away from someone and additionally holding them accountable for what they did. I have learned that a traffic stop is never a “typical” traffic stop. I have been to academies and classes that have made me a better person and a better officer after attending them. Now answer me this! Why did none of this training prepare for the next step of my law enforcement adventure?
I walk into a classroom full of pre-pubescent teens. My knees begin to knock and I begin to sweat more than the felony traffic stop that I last conducted. I can hear my heartbeat in my ears and I now see over 50 sets of eyes boring holes into my head. I don’t believe my teeth are chattering but I could not tell you this because I cannot hear myself think or breathe. I look at my teacher as if they are going to give me the wisdom or courage to get through the next 45 minutes. Needless to say the teacher has failed me. Well…in a matter of speaking.
Like the supervisors within my department, the teacher has information from paragraph one. Unlike me they know I am capable and trained to take over their classroom for a period of about 45 minutes. They do not leave me and are available to me for any questions or disciplinary issues that come up. Without words being spoken I can feel the teachers patting me on the back and whispering to me to breathe. The teacher has now become my life support and my ultimate supervisor. My appreciation for them has grown more in the last 5 minutes of stepping into their classroom than I was prepared for.
I would have never guessed that a room full of 5th graders could leave me as weak as I have ever felt in my life. I can also say that this same room of 5th graders has challenged me, without knowing it, to be a better wife, a better mother, a better instructor and a better officer.
Without the classes knowing it, they will teach me more in 10 weeks than I could ever hope to teach them. Shhhhhhh please don’t tell them ;-)
Leslie Jordan
Auburn WA PD
