Welcome to Nursing EDge Unscripted Saga where we use stories to connect the past to the present and then our future as we reimagine our teaching and learning. As we celebrate the NLN Year of the Nurse Educator, we pay tribute to extraordinary nurses who've made significant contributions to nursing education. We dive into the stories of nurse educators who recognized in need , challenged traditional customs, and influenced
transformative change. Over the past two months, we have focused on the contributions of Dr. Em Bevis, Dr. Nancy Diekelmann, and Dr. Pamela Ironside, educators and thoughtful innovators and scholars who played a significant role in the National League for Nursing's educational reform effort, the Curriculum Revolution. This
occurred in the late 1980s and 1990s. These revolutionaries called for a transformation in the design of nursing programs for a revolution to change the student-teacher relationship. In the humanistic educative model offered by Dr. Bevis, curriculum is defined as interaction between teacher and student; therefore in this view, the teacher-student relationship is the curriculum. A phenomenological model offered by Drs.
Diekelmann and Ironside called for transformed relationship between teacher and student to open the possibility for learning from one another through meaningful dialogue. This month we celebrate one of the most influential leaders of the NLN Curriculum Revolution, Dr. Christine
Tanner. Nurse educators today may know Dr. Tanner as the scholar who conceptualized and developed the Tanner Model of Clinical Judgment, a model used extensively today in nursing programs to teach thinking like a nurse.
But for those nurse educators who recall the exhilarating days of the NLN Curriculum Revolution, Dr, Tanner's presence, her generosity and kindness, and her thoughtful and reflective publications deepened our understanding of the limits of traditional pedagogies and opened new possibilities for the ways in which nurse educators educate our students . In 1987, Dr. Tanner helped to organize the first NLN conference to proclaim that a curriculum
revolution was underway. Over 400 nurse educators gathered in Philadelphia with Tracy Chapman's hit song, "Talking About a Revolution," playing overhead. Speaker after speaker detailed the compelling reasons for a major transformation in the what and how of nursing curricula. Not surprisingly, the call to revolution was not embraced by everyone. In Dr. Tanner's words...
But clearly momentum was gathered at those early meetings for a major transformation of what counted as an acceptable nursing curriculum. For many nurse educators who cautiously embraced the NLN's invitation to reconsider both the issues in the health care system and the dilemmas encountered in teaching students to think in context, there was a sense that something important and exciting was
happening. Although not fully understanding the new pedagogies, they chose to join the revolution . Again, in Dr. Tanner's words... Dr. Tanner's excitement for the possibilities unfolding at the early conferences was contagious. She led the charge knowing that the revolution was heralded by some and marginalized by others.
In part two of this series, we will explore how Dr. Tanner helped nurse educators come to terms with the conflicts and contradictions that educators felt in teaching nursing, how she shaped new ways to educate caring and critically thinking nurses to safely practice nursing. Dr. Tanner's leadership brought together a community of nurse educators committed to a new world view of nursing's educational practices.
And so the saga continues and may our saga continue as we bring to a close this episode of Nursing EDge Unscripted Saga. Thank you for joining us