A Lesson in Being Vulnerable

by Kelly Beischel PhD, RN, CNE

I have never experienced vulnerability like I experienced it today.

It was palpable.

I want to share with you an active teaching strategy I use to teach about caring in nursing. The students and I circled up our chairs in the middle of the room.

The intent was to have all the students take turns expressing a time in their life when they experienced a caring act from another.

I began the experience.

I shared about the outpour of support we received from our extended family and friends following our 15-year-old son’s attempted suicide. While holding on to the end of the yarn, I tossed the skein to a student who then shared an example of what caring looks like to them.

This student then tossed the skein of yarn to another student, while holding on to her piece of yarn. This sequence continued until all students shared their stories. The activity created “a web of caring” between us all.

While the purpose of this teaching strategy was to engage the students’ affective mode, to foster empathy through their classmate’s narratives, I learned so much more.

I learned about teaching, about my student’s lived experiences, and about caring in nursing.

That’s the funny thing about active learning strategies,

I often gain just as much as the students. And when isn’t that cool?

I’ve learned being open and sharing my vulnerabilities with students empowers them to open up. Our willingness as faculty members to share life events with students demonstrates that we are also vulnerable to life’s twists and turns, life’s ups and downs.

I’ve also learned that when students recognize that like them we traverse life’s bumpy roads, it puts us in a great position to role model.

And the best part of having used this affective teaching strategy?

I saw them begin to blossom, to begin to develop into the caring nurses they will become.

Do you use teaching activities that reach the affective mode? What have you learned because you’ve used these activities? I’d love to know.

Please share below. You’ll be in the drawing for the October book: Creating Self-Regulated Learners: Strategies to Strengthen Students’ Self-Awareness and Learning Skills by Linda B. Nilson