Bridges to Intercultural and Intergenerational Learning

Abstract

My "50-something" yoga instructor recently told our class that she had begun teaching seniors. She patronizingly described the group as being "so cute" and marveled at how her new charges tried to keep up with the exercises. I wondered what they would think or feel if they heard their teacher's remarks. Did she realize that her bias marginalized the group-that she was virtually putting them into a box and sealing it shut with the generational label "old." Too often educators unwittingly demonstrate bias with statements based on age, ethnicity, race, religion, sexual orientation, and on and on. We build barriers to the educational process as we isolate ourselves from "the other" and put nursing students on guard, making them wary of opening up to learning. As global society reaches our classrooms and health care doorsteps, we have all the more reason to bridge the gap between differences. According to nursing theorist Madeleine Leininger (1995), understanding cultural differences and similarities has become an imperative for quality nursing education and practice. More than 50 years ago, Dr. Leininger foresaw the need to use the lens of awareness of our attitudes toward "the other" in order to provide true nursing care. Her holistic approach reminds us that care is the essence of nursing, and that there is no care without the inclusion of culture. Leininger dubs this era a new age of transculturalism that calls for nursing faculty and administrators to understand and function thoughtfully with people of many different cultures. Without this shift to transculturalism in nursing education and service, one can predict many unfavorable outcomes that could lead to a host of teaching problems, especially angry and dissatisfied students and patients ( Leininger, 1995). The theme of this issue of Creative Nursing is intercultural and intergenerational learning. Inter means between. Can we interrelate by bridge building and thereby learn from each other? Can we view people, especially our students and coworkers, respectfully as unique individuals and include their cultural differences and similarities in our care? This issue provides readers with much to ponder. Emily Haozous invites readers to take a journey from the tribal desert lands of the southwest to a Yale PhD program as an American Indian nursing student. From a faculty perspective, Margarita Velez-McEvoy and Phygenia Nimoh, both of whom have firsthand experience with educational barriers, address intercultural teaching. Rather than follow the old image of nurses "eating their young," Velez-McEvoy recommends that faculty adhere to a new, caring paradigm that supports students, especially Hispanic students. Nimoh describes strategies she uses to enhance teaching effectiveness and improve cross-cultural communication. Susan Lampe and Bess Tsaouse remind educators that commitment to the success of international students requires scrutiny of teaching methods, specifically of multiple-choice exam questions, to minimize linguistic bias. …