Educator as shaman and the sublated space

SummaryThis paper seeks to identify and explore some of the tensions that nurse educators face when engaging in the competing internal and external demands that are made on their delivery of curricula. It offers that one of the ways to explore these tensions constructively is to see them dialectically. It seeks to identify three archetypal dialectical themes that can be present in our teaching and offers that the educator's role can be understood to be one of a shaman as they seek to resolve these dialectical tensions skilfully.