BY ALAN BRUNACINI
In recent columns, we have been discussing various topics that might help young firefighters better understand some of the activities involved in their new career. Our effectiveness and survival are directly connected to both how early we become students of our profession and how long we stay in firefighting school. Our classroom is the hazard zone, and just when you think you are a graduate student, a new, different situation you never imagined will cause you to instantly become a freshman again. The day you feel you have learned everything there is to know about firefighting should be your last day in the fire service.
Going to school and getting the lesson before the test eliminates a lot of the pain that occurs when the order is reversed. Life's regular curriculum naturally occurs in enough of an unscheduled and imperfect way that we will get plenty of out-of-order "test before the lesson" experiences (road rash) to make the whole educational process really exciting. Lots of times, we get zapped by something/somebody and then wonder why we had not learned and rehearsed the behavior ahead of time—the no-brainers seem to be the most frustrating.
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