Page 286 - Nursing: The Philosophy and Science of Caring

Carita s cur ricul um and t e achin g -le ar ni n g
knowledge and practices and Caring Science frameworks are catch-
ing up with us. We have to face the fact that whether we like it or
not, whether we agree with it or not, we are personally involved in
transforming live encounters with the world through our scholarship,
our knowledge, and our forms of teaching and learning—hence a new
curriculum model.

relationship-centered caring as an educational caring science core
An ethic, ontology, and epistemology of Caritas, of caring-healing,
love, and expanded views of health and nursing, are related to a world-
view of the personal, the interpersonal, the intersubjective, the inti-
mate, the infinite, the communal, a process of mutuality-reciprocity
and transformation. All of this becomes the basis for changing and
being changed by the nature of our Being-Becoming in the world.
This emerging Caring Science epistemology-as-ethic is grounded in
relationship-centered caring and an expanded consciousness of the
power of teaching.
The transformation-learning literature (Bache 2001) has noted that
words we use in teaching-learning, theories, and interpretations carry
much power to influence others. Words not supported by the energy
of personal experiences have much less power than words grounded
in personal experience that possess the energy of love and caring.
In this model, higher-energy thoughts such as love and caring bring
higher-frequency energy into the learning space, even if the space is
nonlocal (Bache 2001). While the power of the teacher is critical to
create the consciousness of a community of scholars and co-learners,
the more important power is the power of the group, the community,
the learning circle. Thus, the individual and collective involvement in
one’s own learning influences the strength and energetic stream that
underpin the content (Bache 2001; Watson 2002a).

conclusion
In this chapter I have extended the notion of the Carative Factor/
Caritas Process of teaching-learning. I have focused on the need for
transformative thinking to underpin professional nursing education
and a caring/Caritas curriculum. I have posited that the foundation of

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