CRITICAL ACCLAIM FOR
The Courage to Teach . . .
“This is the best education book I've read in a long time. Palmer provides
a powerful argument for the need to move from our overreliance on tech-
nique toward a learning environment that both honors and truly develops
the deepest human capacities in children and teachers. It's about time we
remember that it's the person within the teacher that matters most in
education, and Palmer makes the case eloquently.”
—Teacher magazine
“If teaching is just a chore, and you are content to just ‘do chores,' this
book is not for you. You will be challenged to go beyond the minimum
and pursue excellence. But rather than approaching teaching as some-
thing we just tolerate, Parker Palmer holds out the promise of it being
something we can celebrate.”
—Academy of Management
“Wisdom literatures have brought us important insight over the years.
Who thought more deeply about teaching and learning than Alfred North
Whitehead? I reread his short book The Aims of Education . . . every two or
three years. I think also of the wonderful books on teaching from Gilbert
Highet and Kenneth Eble. And, good as any of these, Parker Palmer's The
Courage to Teach.”
—Theodore J. Marchese, vice president,
American Association for Higher Education
“Parker Palmer is a teacher's teacher, and it is when he writes as a teacher
that this book is a remarkably inspiring, almost religious companion for
anyone who has taught or might be thinking of teaching as a vocational
journey for life. This book can change your life if you are a teacher.”
—Religious Education
“I recommend this book. . . . Just substitute ‘management consultant'
whenever the book says ‘teacher.' With that, most all of it works and is
useful. . . . [T]his is a book of philosophy, a book on character, on the kind
of people it takes to be great management consultants. No platitudes;
rather, a serious exploration into the heart and soul of teaching by an elo-
quent and thoughtful master. Serious, yet completely understandable and
engrossing.”
—Journal of Management Consulting
“Through a series of vignettes, Palmer encourages reflection and strives to
bolster readers' initiative and confidence. The Courage to Teach is an awak-
ening, and a gentle, directive touch that reaches out to teachers of all lev-
els and ages.”
—Childhood Education
“This book provides a great deal of insight and new ideas on good teach-
ing which cannot be reduced to techniques because it comes from the
identity and integrity of the teachers. The book balances the concerns on
the thread of connectedness. . . . [T]he spiritual dimension is explored in a
unique way by relating with other fields of study.”
—International Journal on World Peace
“With The Courage to Teach, Parker Palmer challenges us to recall our orig-
inal motives for becoming teachers, and he seeks to guide us in the
process of reclaiming the sense of vocation capable of sustaining us in
that striving.”
—Transformations
“It takes courage to teach in today's schools. But what kind of courage?
This question is seldom asked and, if asked at all, is usually framed in
terms of violence prevention, dealing with overzealous parents and de-
fending the profession against government spite. So to read that educa-
tional courage is an affair of the heart is a welcome change. For, as Parker
Palmer argues in The Courage to Teach, teaching is about commitment and
connections. It is about relationships among students and subjects and
the world that connects both. It is about living and learning. Ultimately it
is about the kind of community necessary in classrooms for authentic
education to take place. And the key to this kind of education is the
human heart.”
—Catholic New Times
From leaders, teachers, thinkers, and writers . . .
“To go on this journey with Parker Palmer into the uncharted territory of
‘the self' in teaching is not only viewing teaching from a thrilling new per-
spective. It is also to be in the presence of a great teacher who, by sharing
himself so openly and honestly, engages us in the very kind of teaching he
so eloquently describes.”
—Russell Edgerton, director of educational programs,
Pew Charitable Trusts, and past president,
American Association for Higher Education
“A profoundly moving, utterly passionate, and inspired articulation of the
call to, and the pain and joy of, teaching. It is must reading for any and
every teacher, at any level.”
—Jon Kabat-Zinn, author, Wherever You Go,
There You Are, and coauthor, Everyday Blessings
“This book is good news—not just for classroom teachers and educators,
but for all of us who are committed to the healing of our world.”
—Joanna Macy, author, World as Lover, World as Self
“Parker Palmer has taught me more about learning and teaching than any-
one else. The Courage to Teach is for all of us—leaders, public officials,
counselors, as well as teachers. It compassionately and insistently asks us
to recognize that our capacity to do good work springs from our recog-
nition of who we are.”
—Margaret J. Wheatley, author, Leadership and
the New Science, and coauthor, A Simpler Way
“This is a profoundly satisfying feast of a book—written with a rare mix of
elegance and rigor, passion, and precision—a gift to all who love teaching
and learning.”
—Diana Chapman Walsh, president, Wellesley College
“Evokes the heart of what teachers really do, and does so in a vivid, com-
pelling, and soulful way.”
—Robert Coles, University Health Services,
Harvard University
OTHER BOOKS BY
PARKER J. PALMER
The Promise of Paradox
The Company of Strangers
To Know as We Are Known
The Active Life
Let Your Life Speak
A Hidden Wholeness
The Courage to Teach Guide for Reflection and Renewal
The Heart of Higher Education
Healing the Heart of Democracy
Copyright © 1998, 2007, 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.
Published by Jossey-Bass
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Palmer, Parker J., author.
Title: The courage to teach : exploring the inner landscape of a teacher's life /
Parker J. Palmer.
Description: Twentieth anniversary edition. | Hoboken, NJ : Jossey-Bass, 2017. |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017030406 (print) | LCCN 2017042731 (ebook) | ISBN
9781119414230 (pdf) | ISBN 9781119414117 (epub) | ISBN 9781119413042 (hard-
back)
Subjects: LCSH: Teachers. | Teaching. | Learning. | BISAC: RELIGION / Christian
Education / General.
Classification: LCC LB1775 (ebook) | LCC LB1775 .P25 2017 (print) | DDC
371.102—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017030406
Cover design by Wiley
Cover image: © Marion Faria photography/Getty Images
CONTENTS
1.Foreword to the Twentieth Anniversary Edition
2.Foreword to the Tenth Anniversary Edition
•Prehistory Revisited
•The Future Is Here
•With Gratitude
•Notes
3.Gratitudes
•Note
4.Dedication
5.Introduction: Teaching from Within
•We Teach Who We Are
•Landscapes Inner and Outer
•A Seldom-Taken Trail
•Note
6.Chapter I: The Heart of a Teacher: Identity and Integrity in Teach-
ing
•Teaching Beyond Technique
•Teaching and True Self
•When Teachers Lose Heart
•Mentors Who Evoked Us
•Subjects That Chose Us
•The Teacher Within
•Notes
7.Chapter II: A Culture of Fear: Education and the Disconnected Life
•An Anatomy of Fear
•The Student From Hell
•The Teacher's Fearful Heart
•Our Fearful Way of Knowing
•Be Not Afraid
•Notes
8.Chapter III: The Hidden Wholeness: Paradox in Teaching and
Learning
•Thinking The World Together
•When Things Fall Apart
•The Limits and Potentials of Self
•Paradox and Pedagogical Design
•Practicing Paradox in the Classroom
•Holding the Tension of Opposites
•Notes
9.Chapter IV: Knowing in Community: Joined by the Grace of Great
Things
•Images of Community
•Reality Is Communal
•Truth Revisited
•The Grace of Great Things
•Knowing and th Sacred
•Notes
10.Chapter V: Teaching in Community: A Subject-Centered Educa-
tion
•The Third Thing
•Teaching from the Microcosm
•The Microcosm in Medical School
•The Microcosm in Social Research
•Open Space and Skillful Means
•Community: Varieties and Obstacles
•Notes
11.Chapter VI: Learning in Community: The Conversation of Col-
leagues
•Teaching Behind Closed Doors
•New Topics of Conversation
•Ground Rules for Dialogue
•The Need for Leadership
•Notes
12.Chapter VII: Divided No More: Teaching from a Heart of Hope
•Gridlock, Despair, and Hope
•An Undivided Life
•Communities of Congruence
•Going Public
•The Heart's Reward
•Notes
13.Afterword to the Tenth Anniversary Edition: The New Professional:
Education for Transformation
•The Movement Model in Action
•A Case Study of Institutional Change
•Our Need for a New Professional
•The Individual and the Institution
•Educating the New Professional
•The Facts Within the Feelings
•The Last Word
•Notes
14.The Authors
15.Center for Courage & Renewal
16.About the Companion Media
17.Index
18.Advert
19.This page is a continuation of the copyright page
20.EULA
List of Illustrations
1.Chapter 4
•Figure 4.1 The Objectivist Myth of Knowing.
•Figure 4.2 The Community of Truth.
2.Chapter 5
