I’ve just had an ‘ah’ moment reading Laurence Cohen’s chapter in the transformative book I’m reading. In it he talks about recognising the boxes we have all be put into during our formative years and that so often we become the expectations placed upon us. So many students are told they will never amount to anything – that they are dumb – and they believe this. I see this so often in nursing. Students coming into nursing not because they believe they will make great nurses but because they see nursing as something that fits with the perceptions they have of themselves.
Nursing also does this to itself. For a century and a half nurses have been torn between recognising their own worth and being the handmaidens of doctors. There has been much written about this tendency of nurses towards embracing the technology of medical science in a way that enhances their self esteem and social standing, but there has not been much written about the intelligence of nursing. The historical research I have done highlights again and again that these intelligences have not been recognised by nurses themselves and that there is almost a barrier to wanting to recognise the intelligence associated with nursing – hence the dogged attachment to skills and practice that is directed by someone else. Cohen picks up on this when he points out that when we admit our own intelligence, we also have to accept responsibility.
The ‘ah’ moment for me therefore had two aspects. One, I have to question whether I am also guilty of reinforcing the boxes students and limitations students place around themselves. I have to take an honest look at the way I approach and perceive the students who do not engage in the classes I teach. I don’t need to worry so much about those that do participate – they are already at a place of being ready to question their own boxes. Rather, it is those students who do not participate in any activities, who enrol but never hand in anything or who rapidly drop out. Am I doing something in these first few weeks of term (and of their university experience) that reinforces messages being played in their own heads, ‘I don’t belong here. I’m too dumb’?
The second component relates to my own attachment to the history of nursing and recognising that providing students with these concepts at this point in their learning is probably not always appropriate. This is not to say that I am devaluing the work I have been doing or that I don’t think nurses don’t need to know and understand their past to be able to make sense of the career in which they are entering. Clearly I strongly believe nursing’s rejection of its own history has been problematic. However, this may not be where many of the students are at. When I reflect upon those students who have reaped the most benefit from the course, it is RNs who are doing the post-reg degree. These are the ones who have experienced the culture and disconnect within nursing and for whom understanding the history helps them join the dots. Younger, inexperienced students often don’t get it and see the course instead as an academic exercise – some enjoy it as such, others do not but learn to appreciate why it is necessary to have this understanding.
My challenge therefore is how to engage those students who question their own intelligence and ‘right’ to be at university so they may come to examine their own assumptions about themselves; to engage those students in the relevance of history for their future career aspirations; and to challenge those students who are wanting to engage and learn the subject area – all at the same time across a class of over 400. This is why teaching this class has to be done online so I can offer a variety of avenues at once. I feel like I’m back to teaching the three levels within the same aerobic class – or at least found a way that I can manage this better. That hasn’t provided me with all the solutions or strategies to deal with this, but I think I’m on the right path and it is a path that I can apply to both the nursing students and the health promotion students, although the latter are a much smaller class and I suspect that provided my workload doesn’t blow out as it has over the past couple of years, I may be able to implement some more personal strategies in this class. The bigger class, however, reinforces for me the importance of directing my energies towards building a sense of community because I cannot develop a personal relationship with so many students. I think herein lies the key – I don’t have to, but by encouraging students to support each other, I may be able to address all challenges.
Hmmm, I think I’ve got a better understanding of the problem, still a little short on solutions.
Reference
Cohen, L 1997, ‘I ain’t so smart and you ain’t so dumb: personal reassessment in transformative learning’, in Cranton, P (ed), Transformative Learning in Action: insights from practice, Jossey-Bass Publishers, San Francisco, pp. 61-68.
