Change As Dialogue, Opportunity, and Courage to Embrace the New
By Tagliareni, M Elaine
One of the greatest joys of being president of the NLN is traveling around the country and meeting faculty from all types of nursing education programs. I am constantly energized by nurse educators, by their commitment to their students and by their overwhelming desire to do the right thing. Often I am asked questions, such as these, regarding content to cover and skills to emphasize: “What do you think, Elaine, will be the future for nursing education? What trends are most significant? What will curricula look like in 10 or 20 years?” Actually, I have never been really big on predicting the future. Foretelling trends has its limitations; often events that appear to be in the future have already happened. Consider the change in demographics. As we ponder the integration of geriatrics in prelicensure nursing education, nearly 50 percent of the patients our students already care for are older adults. So, too, the current imperative to redesign safety and quality competencies in both undergraduate and graduate nursing education is timely, but a series of Institute of Medicine reports has documented significant problems with medication errors and systemwide quality and safety issues since 2001.
Perhaps the secret to forecasting future events is to be open to what has already happened and to be willing to respond. For nurse educators, that involves rethinking what and how we teach and acknowledging that realities in practice must inform nursing education. The future is right in front of us. We have only to open our eyes, listen more intently, and accept the world as it is and as it is unfolding. In this context, change is inevitable and the natural order of things.
In my travels, I often hear faculty talk about change: “Elaine, the world of nursing is changing so rapidly, it is hard to know what is most important.” So often I hear apprehension and uncertainty as faculty struggle to determine the best ways to be with students in the classroom and in environments of care. It is not so much, I believe, that we are afraid of change or so in love with our present ways that we resist examining our more traditional approaches. Rather, it is the insecurity that comes from being in a new place, an in-between place, and the simultaneous anxiety of implementing new practices without the certitude of success. A wise friend and mentor once compared this state to being between one trapeze and another, or like Linus when his blanket is in the dryer. There is nothing to hold on to.
From its earliest days, the NLN has been a catalyst in efforts to reform nursing education. Leaders of the curriculum revolution invited nurse educators to be risky and unconventional and to embrace cutting-edge thinking about how teachers teach and how students are taught. Two NLN position papers, Innovation in Nursing Education: A Call to Reform and Transforming Nursing Education (www.nln.org/aboutnln/PositionStatements/ index.htm), recommend that proposed changes to nursing education be informed by clinical practice and emanate from evidence that substantiates the science of nursing education.
Throughout our history, members of the NLN have called on colleagues to be open to new ideas and to rethink approaches to curriculum design. In this issue of Nursing Education Perspectives, for example, articles on the realities of the current generation of students, alternative approaches for community mental health experiences, and innovative methods to help students build evidence by posing searchable clinical questions provide a rich foundation to reframe current thinking.
It takes courage to embrace the new. But for all of us who stand in life as teachers, who share the goal of bringing excellence to nursing education and building a strong and diverse nursing workforce, we have no choice but to be open to what is happening now. Viewing change as dialogue, as a legitimate response to emerging data, ideas, and perspectives, is, I believe, the most important skill we can achieve for ourselves, for our students, and for those faculty who will enter our teaching ranks over the next decade. In this way, change is viewed as opportunity, not a rejection of what has been done and what we are doing, not an exercise in uncertainty and tension, but, rather, a dynamic process of integrating new information and accepting a world that has changed around us.
The bottom line is: we must celebrate the contributions all nurse faculty have made in our evolution. The realization that the future is right in front gives us the courage to cherish our past, examine our present, and be willing to adapt to the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.
Perhaps the secret to forecasting future events is to be open to what has already happened and to be willing to respond. For nurse educators, that involves rethinking what and how we teach and acknowledging that realities in practice must inform nursing education.
Reference
Ironside, P., & Valiga, T. (2007). On revolution and revolutionaries: 25 years of reform and innovation in nursing education. New York: National League for Nursing.
Copyright National League for Nursing, Inc. Mar/Apr 2008
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