Guest Post from Kelly Suter, RN, Medical Relief Worker and Writer

I always say that I have the best students in the world, and it’s wonderful when they keep in touch with me after they leave my classroom. This holiday season, I’m extremely lucky to be able to present for you, my blog readers, a guest post by Kelly Suter, R.N., a former writing student (yes, nurses do have to know how to write!) and a nurse engaged in the battle against Ebola. Kelly has spent significant time doing medical relief work in Haiti, Sierra Leone, and Liberia and has been interviewed on 60 Minutes in the story “The Hot Zone” (to see the segment, just click on the link at the bottom of this page).  Moreover, Kelly is one of those rare, special people who, at a very young age, has found her Work.

Here are Kelly’s thoughts about writing and its importance in our world:

If you are like me,  English was one of your least favorite subjects growing up.  Language, in general, seemed cumbersome and inconsistent to my young and obstinate mind.  Despite my initial aversion, I would come to appreciate and respect language–especially in its written form. I gradually came to understand that the written word does not exist solely to act as an accessory to the spoken word; the written word is an art form unto itself.  In music, sounds and words are arranged in such a way to elicit a reaction deep within the human soul.   Similarly, in writing, words are arranged to the same effect. The more beautifully and carefully those words are arranged, the more powerful the effect–the deeper that message resonates and the more clearly it is understood by the human spirit. As I became more acquainted with writing, I also came to realize that the written word is a powerful tool.  A simple phrase can inspire great hope, courage and love.  Alternatively, it can also cause great pain, destruction and fear.  I decided early on that I would use any talent I possessed as a writer to inspire as much good in this world as possible. Writing has now become my faithful companion and weapon of choice in a world plagued by suffering.  In my years of medical relief work, writing has given me a means of sharing my experiences and–more importantly–the stories of those most of the world would rather forget. From the child that was buried under the rubble of his family home after the earthquake in Haiti to the elderly woman who walked for three days with her grandchild–sick with cholera–strapped to her back to find medical treatment in rural Haiti. From the malnourished twins in East Timor to the young student who was murdered by firing squad for simply being born of the wrong tribe in South Sudan. From the man who lost his five-year-old son to Ebola in Liberia to the gravedigger who wants to do his part to save his country from Ebola in Sierra Leone. Writing has allowed these experiences to be a positive motivating force in the lives of many, rather than in the life of only one.

The written word gives us the power to cross oceans, climb mountains, and break through barriers. It gives us the ability to inspire, create and encourage. Most importantly–it reminds us all that we are human and that we are all interconnected.

60 Minutes: “The Hot Zone”

The Best of All Possible Worlds

As I sit at my desk, waiting for papers to trickle in, I take a few minutes to contemplate the teaching life. Don’t worry–this won’t be a political post decrying the impossible demands placed on teachers in the United States, the lack of professional respect for them, or the very real difficulties involved in creating a career in teaching, although all of those topics do bear talking about. Today, rather than craft a careful argument about the demise of education and its consequences for our culture, I’m just going to indulge in some personal reflections on the teaching life, offered by a community college professor who is still in the trenches, hands dirtied with run-on sentences and flawed thesis statements, fingers wearied by clutching a rapidly fading red pen.

It’s at this point that I look back on the semester and consider all the work my students have done, reflect on all the goals I had for them and myself, consider where we are and how we’ve gotten here, and think: “What an awful job I’ve done! How miserably I’ve failed them!” The truth is, I always feel rotten, simply miserable, at the end of the semester. No matter how many students tell me what a good semester they’ve had, I always think about the fact that I could have helped them more: engaged them in more discussion, made more comments on their papers, asked more about their personal lives, and generally been more of a mensch and less of a schlemiel.

This is not a cry for sympathy, however, or a self-deprecating appeal for someone to contradict me. I’ve been teaching pretty much all of my adult life, and I’m not young anymore. I’m used to this feeling, and, like many other feelings I have that are not particularly productive, I acknowledge this one and pass it by, much as a man in the 1950s would tip his hat at a passing acquaintance on the street and continue walking down the block. Part of this refusal to give in to the feeling of desperate failure as a teacher comes from simple familiarity with it. I expect many, probably most, teachers feel this way. Part of it may come from simple inertia; but part of it comes from the knowledge that my students will have to survive many mediocre teachers throughout their academic career, and if I’ve been one of them this semester, it’s part of the experience that they will need to have in order to succeed as students. Like a refrain from Candide, I can say, “It’s all for the best. They need to learn to teach themselves, and if I’ve failed them this semester, perhaps they’ll learn how to do this all the more quickly.”

So, today, as the semester draws to a close, here’s to all the teachers, professors, GSAs, teaching assistants, and instructors who have done the best they could with what they had and emerged relatively unscathed from yet another semester. After all, the best thing about being a teacher is that, unlike the students we teach, we always get a chance next semester to do it right.