Confessions from behind the whiteboard #3

I’ve taught first aid in a lot of places.

Boardrooms, community halls, tents, aircraft hangars, and garages, once under the watchful glass eyes of a mounted deer head named Bruce. Bruce never blinked or said a word. That’s what I call excellent focus.

I’ve rocked babies to sleep in my arms, or walked around the room with them trying to get them to sleep, while watching their mama complete her assessment on the mat in front of me. I’ve worked around dogs, toddlers, and at least one cat taking rear-end aim at a manikin.

That’s the thing about private classes. When a company books us to train their team, we come to them. We set up in their space and share the room with whoever else happens to live or work there, babies, dogs, and the occasional taxidermy deer. We just work around them.

That doesn’t mean we lower the bar. We still expect good practice, proper technique, and people to meet the standard, it's a life or death skill after all. We will just be doing it while making funny faces at a baby or stepping around a dog on the mat.

Nick sent this photo last week to our team WhatsApp at 11:58am with the caption, “First aid training is tiring.”

By 11:59am, our Managing Director, Vicky, had replied: “Aww, bring him to my office 😎”

That’s City First Aid culture in two messages.

I don’t know the dog’s name. Nick doesn’t remember either. I'm going to call him Beau, he looks like a Beau. Beau could perhaps win the most relaxed student in the room award. He certainly wins at making the learning milieu more homey.

Here’s what I’ve learned from nearly 26 years behind the whiteboard: people learn better when they feel welcome. All of them. The ones who arrive nervous. The ones who bring their babies because there was no other option. The ones whose dog just quietly takes over the mat.

When we come to you, we enter your world. We think that’s exactly as it should be.

And yes, we hug people sometimes, we hold babies sometimes, and we go all squishy inside at fur babies too. And we’re not sorry.

First aid class has a way of cracking people open a little, and nothing says first aid like a bit of human comfort in the mix.

City First Aid. Come as you are. Learn what matters. Bring your dog (but don’t tell anyone I said that).