From Nursing to Teaching, Grall Brings Calming Presence

When asked to describe their health science teacher, Freddie Grall, at Jessamine County Technology Center, students Ashley Graves and Zoey Rose cheerfully rattle off her attributes.

Sweet, caring, supportive, loving… and brutally honest. “We need that in a teacher,” Ashley said.

Said Zoey: “She knows when you’re having a bad day. If there is something she can do for you, she will. She’s the best.”

Added Ashley: “She teaches us respect, and she really knows what she is teaching.”

Grall should. A registered nurse since 1980, she was 25 years into a nursing career when 14 years ago she became a charter member of the faculty at the Technology Center.

She must have been nervous about starting a brand new career, right?

“Well, not too many things rattle me,” she said. “Actually, I thought it was a great challenge and I had so much support, such good mentors at school.”

But she was starting from scratch. What did she have to learn?

“Like how to do a lesson plan. You know, the basics,” she said.

Still, the transition was a smooth one, helped by how much she loves the content – and the students.

She teaches emergency procedures (first aid and CPR), medical terminology and the Medicaid nurse-aid program. Classwork is hands-on. Her classroom features educational skeletons and anatomy dummies, plus life-size dummies in beds.

Students learn nursing basics, everything from giving a patient a bed bath to the proper way to deliver food and remove a food tray.

When her students graduate, they are career ready and many enter the workforce as nurse aids. Others move on to college to become licensed practical nurses (two-year degree) or RNs (four-year degree.).

Grall is always in control and calm, traits she learned as a nurse, according to Principal Dexter Knight.

“She has a calming presence and the kids pick up on that,” he said. “She has a great reputation in the medical community, and the students love her.”

That feeling runs both ways, Grall said. “I know that teaching students about health and their own bodies empowers them.

“I loved hospital work and now I love teaching. It’s a good day when it’s time to leave and the students aren’t packing up because they are engaged in the lesson. In fact, that’s a perfect day.”