Do nursing instructors deliberately try to weed out students, by doing things like testing on material they haven't gone over yet, deliberately making it hard, picking on students?
My opinion was the "weeding out of students" was a myth.
The weeding out process seems to occur naturally, and the reason so many people don't make it through the program that started out, is that it's a tough, demanding, time consuming program, and whose eyes are on graduating top notch nurses who can pass NCLEX.
I do know teacher eyeball students they don't think are good clinicians and many of these cry "the teacher doesn't like me, and is out to get me". Or eyeball students that need a kick in the butt, or need a confidence boost and they feel picked on as well.
I don't think insturctors play games and try to weed students out.
on the other hand, paramedic schools are much more laid back. the focus is on doing the job. those same instructors that are on such power trips in nursing schools would be drop kicked out the back door of a medic school. as a medic, you can test thru excelsior and become an rn without ever setting foot in a nursing school. i'm very thankful that some folks at the nln have enough sense to realize that there is more than one path to competence.
excelsior graduates 3000 nurses a year, dwarfing any other program. nursing school, for me, is irrelevant. go excelsior!!
Yeah ... well ... that won't do you any good in California. Excelsior had a lousy reputation here, and the state got rid of the program. The problem was incompetence, not competence .... especially with MA's who were becoming RN's with no training. EC wasn't doing you any favors with that one.
I'll be the first to admit that there is a ton of BS in nursing school. But at least they still train you. EC does not do that and it cost EC grads the ability to practice here. That's nothing to brag about.
Basically what you people are saying ,,,,,, Nursing school is....... Louis Gossett Jr watching your every move screaming, "I WANT YOUR D.O.R. MAYO!!!!" :angryfire
Basically what you people are saying ,,,,,, Nursing school is....... Louis Gossett Jr watching your every move screaming, "I WANT YOUR D.O.R. MAYO!!!!" :angryfire
BUT I GOT NOWHERE ELSE TO GOOOOO!!!!
:chuckle :chuckle :chuckle
:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:
....yeah...the 'whiners' at my school try to make it seem like that.
I'm an instructor...not for nursing but for a nursing prereq. I'm still trying to get into nursing school (backwards, I know :))
"Weeding out" is a term that profs generally hate, for good reason. I do NOT fail my students. My students fail themselves. Sound corny? Well, maybe. But, it's true.
From my standpoint as an instructor, if a student is having a problem with something it is their responsibility to tell the instructor. End of story. I told my students that I would do absolutely anything that I could do to help them. I would meet them outside of my office hours, on weekends, whenever and wherever they wanted. There was a catch, though, they had to ask for the help. I had a particularly large class last semester, and there's no way for me to keep up with everyone's progress. If a student makes an F on the exam and never comes to talk to me about it, I assume they are just fine with that grade.
I am a tough instructor. I expect A LOT from my students. I don't consider that "weeding out," although that's kind of what naturally happens. The material I teach is CENTRAL to the nursing profession. If a student can't understand that, they are in for quite the rude awakening when they actually get to nursing school, clinicals, and patients, who are becoming more and more inquisitive and educated about medical care. I would rather a student I taught enter into nursing school feeling over prepared and scrutinized than feeling like nursing school is going to be a breeze because they aced all the prereqs without having to try.
Specializes in Specializes in L/D, newborn, GYN, LTC, Dialysis.
I'm an instructor...not for nursing but for a nursing prereq. I'm still trying to get into nursing school (backwards, I know :))
"Weeding out" is a term that profs generally hate, for good reason. I do NOT fail my students. My students fail themselves. Sound corny? Well, maybe. But, it's true.
From my standpoint as an instructor, if a student is having a problem with something it is their responsibility to tell the instructor. End of story. I told my students that I would do absolutely anything that I could do to help them. I would meet them outside of my office hours, on weekends, whenever and wherever they wanted. There was a catch, though, they had to ask for the help. I had a particularly large class last semester, and there's no way for me to keep up with everyone's progress. If a student makes an F on the exam and never comes to talk to me about it, I assume they are just fine with that grade.
I am a tough instructor. I expect A LOT from my students. I don't consider that "weeding out," although that's kind of what naturally happens. The material I teach is CENTRAL to the nursing profession. If a student can't understand that, they are in for quite the rude awakening when they actually get to nursing school, clinicals, and patients, who are becoming more and more inquisitive and educated about medical care. I would rather a student I taught enter into nursing school feeling over prepared and scrutinized than feeling like nursing school is going to be a breeze because they aced all the prereqs without having to try.
Just my $0.02
I can deal with that. It sounds reasonable and fair to me.
Specializes in Specializes in L/D, newborn, GYN, LTC, Dialysis.
Basically what you people are saying ,,,,,, Nursing school is....... Louis Gossett Jr watching your every move screaming, "I WANT YOUR D.O.R. MAYO!!!!" :angryfire
BUT I GOT NOWHERE ELSE TO GOOOOO!!!!
:chuckle :chuckle :chuckle
it can be, depending on where you go. I can see it's different everywhere. I wish I had gone where the instructors appreciated hard worked and worked with those sincere and caring enough----rather than find targets and try and "hit" em at any chance they got.
Specializes in Specializes in L/D, newborn, GYN, LTC, Dialysis.
I think that there is some weeding out, but I do not believe that it is like many say it is. Yes, the programs are tough. There aren't going to be some that suceed, and that is a reality - BUT I do think that if a nursing instructor finds a student that is exceptionally incompetent that they may tend to focus on them and then "weed" them out.
Not picking on you---I see you read my post, but this seems to be a common belief by those who had good nursing schools and instuctors/professors.
I am sorry some folks here don't believe me. Or that they think people like me "deserved weeding out" for some reason......... What can I say? You are lucky to be able to disbelieve it , if your experiences in school have been or are that helpful or nurturing. :) Really lucky, so be glad.
I will say this: I had no valid reason to have a target on my back, (I was an A-student all the way, no cheater and a team player)----- but for an entire semester, for one instructor, that was exactly what I had-----a nice red bulls-eye. It sucked. But I prevailed----what is meant to be, will be, I guess.
But I would not repeat it if these same instructors and rules (if you can call them that) were in place today.
trust me when i tell you i know exactly what you're talking about. i swear some of these instructors have a sadistic streak in them. i am the farthest thing from a wuss and do not freely complain, but a few of my instructors were brutal, absolutely brutal. as an adult student, i was not to be screwed with. but for the younger ones, i saw the damage done and they DID try but were so intimidated, wouldn't dare to ask for help. truthfully, i thought all nsg programs were similiar to what i experienced. evidentally not.
Marie_LPN, RN, LPN, RN
12,126 Posts
Although i'm sure there are rare cases where there really is someone that vindictive to do that to people.