Knowing within: practice wisdom of clinical nurse educators

The challenges nurse educators encounter and respond to while teaching undergraduate students in the clinical area require a unique set of skills and teaching expertise, different from those acquired through classroom teaching. As these educators encounter, make sense of, and move beyond these interruptions, a unique set of understandings and wisdom is acquired. In explicating this wisdom, philosophical literature on practical wisdom, tacit knowledge, smooth activity, and Unready to Hand immersions was accessed. Two layers of interviews were conducted with 9 educators (32 total interviews). An interpretive analysis of these stories elucidated the metaphor of Unready to Hand as Adventure, revealing three domains of practice: Preserving the Ideal, Salvaging Learning, and Sustaining Self. These domains clarify the professional teaching knowledge these educators acquired and offer insight into how one may respond within the everyday encounters that characterize this area of teaching practice.