Humility is sometimes needed

I am in Malaysian Red Crescent Society, that’s no secret. I’ve been in the society since primary school if anyone is counting without any breaks in my service. I am proud of that.

What people sometimes don’t know is that I was also active in university. We had made good friends with the State committee that we get to attend a instructor crash course. I remember it was a whole week, camped out in University Malaya, sitting for ALL the courses needed to get the instructor certificate. All in one week.

That was almost 20 years ago.

So what this means is that I “used” to have an instructor cert. This means that I can teach most of the certified courses in Red Crescent. For some people, this means power as they get to influence the youth members when they are teaching them. For others, it’s a good supplemental income as the instructors are paid.

To maintain the instructor certification, I need to continue renewing my advanced first aid. This is where I was inconsistent and let my certification expired.

So last year, I wanted to see if I still have what it takes to get back into the game. To prove myself, I worked towards getting the instructor cert. Since I already got most of the certs (that do no have expiry 20 years ago), the hill I need to climb is not as high as others. Still I had to take my basic certification followed by advanced first aid. I need to wait for the courses to be available, not that I can sign up anytime.

I took the basic first aid together with the youth members. I definitely have the experience working as ambulance crew to be teaching the youth some tricks. When it’s time to take the test, the students were surprised that the “teacher” was taking the same exam. That’s was a change in perspective.

Then came advanced first aid and it has been almost 2 years after I’ve taken the basic first aid cert. Advanced first aid is basically 3 weekends to finish the class. It’s more of biting the bullet, finding the time. Advanced first aid is full of people who are already instructors and also renewing their certificates. So you can feel the air full of technical terms and sharing.. there’s camaraderie among the people who know, I am a nobody.

At the end I passed.. not many people who took the exam did.

It’s not difficult to pass, it’s all about paying attention in class to pick up the clues. The questions are tricky, not straight from the books as it’s more situation based. This is when some field experience come in handy.

Seems they are changing the way to renew the certification in the coming years. I did this to prove a point that I still have the patience to get the instructor cert. It has been many years in the making. It’s not tough, anyone can do it if you have the humility and patience.