Race Issues in Nursing

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I started school in January of 2020. In our class, An African American lady has comment every time a caucasian person asked a teacher a question. She interrupts the teacher to answer the student's question, treating the person as if it's a dumb question. The teachers never correct her and seem to side with her. During clinical practice, she told me I was going to kill someone in front of a teacher while practicing pulling staples out. I did it back to her and dared a teacher to say something to me. There was no way the teacher didn't hear her. She does this every day when someone asks a question out loud. My behavior was inappropriate but it felt good to stand up for myself. Deceitfulness, liars, and bullies upset me. Along with others, I am tired of her behavior. I am trying to understand why the teachers let the issue continue without correcting her. I cannot find a logical explanation in my head of why the teachers let her interrupt the class and treat others badly. I am hoping someone can help me understand the reasoning behind this.

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Specializes in ER, ICU, Infusion, peds, informatics.

Are you sure it is a race issue and not just a person issue? Some people are just obnoxious. The teachers probably let her get away with this because nursing instructors (and really post-secondary educators in general) are not taught classroom management skills.

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It could be a personality issue. It still isn't right that she talks over the teacher to answer a student's question instead of letting the teacher answer. Maybe like my daughter said to me. The teachers don't care about the students and/or care enough to get involved in it.

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Specializes in Stepdown . Telemetry.

Just curious why you began the post saying that this African American person makes a comment whenever a caucasian person asks a question, as if its this black person out to get the white peolple? Why insinuate race is involved when its more likely that because the majority of the class is caucasian, a student question is coming from a caucasian?

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I saw this general behavior, to some extent, in military workplaces. One would think that if any people knew how to handle classroom, large group, small group, or individual management issues, it would be the military. But people are people and most people don’t care to maximize conflict. So problem persons get away with a lot, and they usually are quite aware this is happening. That is why they continue with the same behavior. It works for them.

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On 2/19/2020 at 5:41 AM, kaylee. said:

Just curious why you began the post saying that this African American person makes a comment whenever a caucasian person asks a question, as if its this black person out to get the white peolple? Why insinuate race is involved when its more likely that because the majority of the class is caucasian, a student question is coming from a caucasian?

The class is a mixture of both races. It's about 9/9. I said it because she did it to only white people. Think the teacher said something to her, can't prove it. She was nice to me on Friday. I'm glad we are better with each other. I've never bothered her so there is not any reason for her to lash out at me. She and her other friend still lash out at the other three girls. One of them asked a teacher a question about clinical and the African American started yelling at her in front of the teacher saying don't make me angry or etc. I can't remember her exact words now. The other girl never said anything back to her but overheard her saying she's close to going to the dean of the program about the issue. I don't know what she did to make the girl yell at her. I'm just happy I am no longer involved in the issue. I am pretty happy and hope I get through these last two tests on Monday and Tuesday so I can go to clinical on Wednesday.

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