Welcome to this episode of Nursing EDge Unscripted Saga where we journey through the history of nursing education connecting the past to the present and then our future as we reimagine teaching and learning. In this year of Saga and the NLN Year of the Nurse Educator we continue to focus on celebrating extraordinary nurses who have made significant
contributions to nursing education. Let's dive into stories of nurse educators who recognized a need, challenged traditional customs, and influenced transformative change. More than three decades ago in the late 1980s and 1990s, leaders of the NLN curriculum revolution invited nurse educators to challenge long-held assumptions about classroom and clinical teaching and to engage in a dialogue that was risky and unconventional.
With nursing curricular reform in mind, they asked colleagues to embrace the teaching of inquiry, reflection, criticism, and creativity in new ways and to reframe the nature of clinical judgment in nursing. Their words and writings were cutting edge thinking about how teachers teach and how students learn. While thoughtful advocates of reform, many of their ideas never fully materialized. As is true in all revolutions, change was celebrated by some and marginalized by others.
The NLN is proud of the role we played to support and advance the revolution through conferences, publications, and position statements. In this Year of the Nurse Educator, what a fitting time to reflect on the NLN's role in the curriculum revolution, to highlight nurse educators who led the way to question traditional beliefs and norms and seek transformation. The NLN is indebted to
Dr. Em Olivia Bevis, Dr. Nancy Diekelmann, Dr. Christine Tanner, Dr. David Allen, Dr. Peggy Chinn, Verle Waters, and others for their resilience, thoughtful advocacy of nursing's moral commitment to society's need for a competent and diverse nursing workforce, and for their steadfastness to bring excellence to nursing education.
This month we honor Dr. Bevis, one of nursing education's greatest thinkers, leaders, and reformers, who spearheaded the revolution with resolve, evidence-based far-reaching new ideas, and a legendary sense of humor. Dr Bevis, born in 1932, began her educational journey in 1958 when she returned to rural Georgia after graduating with a master's degree
from the University of Chicago. She developed the first BSN program with an emphasis on rural nursing at Georgia Southern University and a successful graduate nursing program at the Medical College of Georgia in Savannah. A scholar of educational theory, she became a sought-after consultant as educators worked to achieve accreditation and became students of curriculum mapping, threads, and terminal objectives.
An avowed behaviorist, Dr. Bevis based her work on the Tyler model of curriculum development. The model assumes that student outcomes could and should be measured over time. Dr. Bevis came to realize that the Tyler model focused on training, not education. Behavioral objectives, as the sole arbiters of learning, she realized, were just too narrow and lacked the creative energy necessary
to guide emancipatory curriculum development. Dr. Bevis wrote about her conversion from a devout behaviorist to a humanist in a classic article entitled "All in All, It was a Pretty Good Funeral." This was published in the March 1993 issue of the Journal of Nursing Education.
When summoned to join the first NLN Curriculum Revolution Conference, she joined enthusiastically. When questioned why she had so significantly altered her beliefs she said, "My grandmother always told me - 'Em - you clean up your messes.' " Her humor and her engaging conversational style of speaking helped committed nurse educators to begin to substantively think differently about nursing education.
Join us for part two of the Em Olivia Bevis story to hear how her participation in the revolution legitimized adding new pedagogies to the nursing curriculum and how her respect for nursing and for nursing education suggested a new paradigm for nurse educators. Dr. Bevis spent the rest of her professional life making the case for a revolution. 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