Choose Your Teaching Identity Consciously

Daybook September 5

Nurses and educators learn from both positive and negative role models. The important step is not merely remembering who was “good” or “bad,” but identifying specific behaviors, understanding their effects on learners, and consciously choosing which practices to carry forward and which to stop.

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Every educator carries traces of previous teachers.

Some traces are easy to recognize. A teacher who made questions feel safe may influence the way we respond to learners. A preceptor who explained clinical reasoning instead of only giving instructions may shape how we teach judgment.

Other traces are more difficult.

A teacher who humiliated students may leave behind a strong promise: “I will never teach like that.” Yet under pressure, people can repeat behaviors they once disliked. Fatigue, workload, frustration, and hierarchy can pull us toward familiar patterns.

This is why reflection matters.

The useful question is not simply, “Who was my best teacher?” or “Who was my worst teacher?”

The better questions are:
What did that person actually do?
How did I respond?
What happened to my willingness to ask, think, or participate?
What value did the behavior communicate?
Would I want a learner to experience the same thing from me?

Positive role models can show us what is possible. Negative role models can help us define boundaries—but only if we actively examine what happened. Harm does not automatically become wisdom.

The goal is not to transform every painful experience into gratitude. The goal is to prevent harmful practices from becoming inherited habits.

Teaching identity is therefore not only something we receive. It is something we edit.

We keep some practices.
We reject others.
We repair mistakes.
We listen to feedback.
We choose again.

Over time, those repeated choices become the teacher others experience.

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One Line for Nurses & Learners:
Do not inherit a teaching behavior simply because you survived it.

— © cyberrn · Daybook Series