Jon Thomas (2008)

Jonathan "JT" Thomas sat down with the Alumni Association to walk us through his time at James Madison Preparatory School as a student and then staff, as well as his work as an intensive-care unit nurse during COVID. He also spoke about his recent promotion to Course Chair of the University of Arizona's Bachelor's of Science in Nursing program, where he now runs clinicals and trains nurses.

The value of a JMPS education

JMPS teacher Amy Schilling remembers Jon "JT" Thomas as a "wonderful student"

who "sincerely thanked each of his teachers at the end of every single class period. Every day."

She would not have thought of him as a student in particular need of moral guidance.

Yet JT credits his time at JMPS with instilling important values in him, like strong work ethic, self-reliance, honesty, integrity, courage, respectfulness, and responsibility.

“I don’t feel I’m the smartest guy,” JT says. “The reason I succeed is my values... If you have those, you can succeed.”

He relied on these values daily when he transitioned directly from nursing school into being an ICU nurse. He uses these values now as Course Chair for the University of Arizona’s Bachelor’s of Science in Nursing program, where he is currently training 62 nurses.

“If you’re not resilient [as a nurse], you’re not going to succeed,” JT says.

Coming from the JMPS culture, where character matters, has made all the difference for him.

“It’s great to have knowledge, but if you don’t have values, you can only get so far. If you have both, you will go so much farther...I’m not saying JMPS didn’t give me knowledge, it did. But coming out of [JMPS] as a student and a teacher, with those values, that helped me succeed in nursing school and then the ICU.”

And he thinks it was crucial that he arrived at JMPS in middle school, which is when kids are moldable.

JT has found these values are not as common in the real world: “Lots of people do not have those values, especially strong work ethic and self-reliance,” he says, though he wishes they did. “If I had James Madison students in my classroom, it would be so much easier.”

Time as a JMPS educator

JT has warm feelings about his time as a teacher and coach, where he was loved by students. He coached girls’ volleyball and basketball for several seasons.

“I still have this mental picture of running my first field day and all the funny individual things that would happen, like the bat race with all the kids getting dizzy, and students just being themselves because they were in an environment where they could be themselves,” JT says.

He also fondly recalls learning early on that “if girls start laughing [in practice], I’d have to stop it soon or nothing productive would happen. One time, something funny happened, and the girls started laughing, and they were so giddy we had to stop practice.”

While coaching volleyball, JT made a promise to his team: he would sing karaoke if they went undefeated for a certain number of games. The girls delivered, and so did he. JT performed the Miley Cyrus song "Wrecking Ball" during a school assembly, substituting the word "volleyball" for "wrecking ball" to great applause.

(Unfortunately, footage of this momentous event could not be found during the research for this article.)

Transferring from bed-side care to a teaching position during COVID

After falling in love with teaching at JMPS, JT knew that his nursing career would likely, at some point, involve teaching nursing. He was surprised that an opportunity to transition into teaching came up this year, just a few years into his nursing career.

“I thought I’d be in bedside [care] longer, but if I said no, I probably wouldn’t see another position like this for a very long time.”

There was a lull in COVID cases when he changed to his new job this spring, but it was still hard for him to leave the medicine side during the COVID pandemic.

”It’s almost like you’re in the Marines and you’re fighting,” JT says.

But that also highlights for him how important, if stressful, education is. His first class of nurses currently has 62 students, all of whom “will save thousands of lives, instead of just acting as one nurse.”

The ICU during COVID

“When you get into the real world, you see life is not as organized as you think,” JT says.

This was especially true for him during the COVID pandemic. “Here we had decades of scientific knowledge, but we had to go into this new situation and learn how to adapt and learn in the moment.”

JT saw physicians in dialogue with each other and collaborating across state lines. He joined hospitals discussions with registered nurses and physicians about whether to treat COVID with remdesivir or hydroxycloriquine.

“Some [treatments] we kept using and some we never saw again.”

Because of how quickly medicine and science are changing, JT believes that “we need to teach nurses a lot and teach them [self-reliance] and how to teach themselves. You can give someone a fish or teach them how to catch a fish. That’s what the Scientific Method is all about. We want the knowledge but it’s harder to teach someone to fish.”