The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher's Life

The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher's Life: The Teacher Within   

The Teacher Within 

 

Encounters with mentors and subjects can awaken a sense of self and yield clues 

to who we are. But the call to teach does not come from external encounters 

alone—no outward teacher or teaching will have much effect until my soul as- 

sents. Any authentic call ultimately comes from the voice of the teacher within, the 

voice that invites me to honor the nature of my true self. 

 

By the voice of the inward teacher, I do not mean conscience or superego, moral ar- 

biter or internalized judge. In fact, conscience, as it is commonly understood, can 

get us into deep vocational trouble. 

 

When we listen primarily for what we “ought” to be doing with our lives, we may 

find ourselves hounded by external expectations that can distort our identity and 

integrity. There is much that I ought to be doing by some abstract moral calculus. 

But is it my vocation? Am I gifted and called to do it? Is this particular ought a 

place of intersection between my inner self and the outer world, or is it someone 

else's image of how my life should look? 

 

When I follow only the oughts, I may find myself doing work that is ethically laud- 

able but not mine to do. A vocation that is not mine, no matter how externally val- 

ued, does violence to the self—in the precise sense that it violates my identity and 

integrity on behalf of some abstract norm. When I violate myself, I invariably end 

up violating the people I work with. How many teachers inflict their own pain on 

their students, the pain that comes from doing what never was, or no longer is, 

their true work? 

 

In contrast to the strained and even violent concept of vocation as an ought, Fred- 

erick Buechner offers a more generous and humane image of vocation as “the 

place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet.”11 

 

In a culture that sometimes equates work with suffering, it is revolutionary to sug- 

gest that the best inward sign of vocation is deep gladness—revolutionary but 

true. If a work is mine to do, it will make me glad over the long haul, despite the 

difficult days. Even the difficult days will ultimately gladden me, because they pose 

the kinds of problems that can help me grow in a work if it is truly mine. 

 

If a work does not gladden me in these ways, I need to consider laying it down. 

When I devote myself to something that does not flow from my identity, that is 

not integral to my nature, I am most likely deepening the world's hunger rather 

than helping to alleviate it. 

 

There are times when we must work for money rather than meaning, and we may 

never have the luxury of quitting a job because it does not make us glad. But that 

does not release us from continually checking the violence we do to others and 

ourselves by working in ways that violate our souls. Nor does it relieve us from 

wondering whether preserving integrity is a luxury. What brings more security in 

the long run: holding this job or honoring my soul? 

 

The teacher within is not the voice of conscience but of identity and integrity. It 

speaks not of what ought to be but of what is real for us, of what is true. It says 

things like, “This is what fits you and this is what doesn't”; “This is who you are 

and this is who you are not”; “This is what gives you life and this is what kills your 

spirit—or makes you wish you were dead.” The teacher within stands guard at the 

gate of selfhood, warding off whatever insults our integrity and welcoming what- 

ever affirms it. The voice of the inward teacher reminds me of my truth as I nego- 

tiate the force field of my life. 

 

I realize that the idea of a teacher within strikes some academics as a romantic 

fantasy, but I cannot fathom why. If there is no such reality in our lives, centuries 

of Western discourse about the aims of education become so much lip-flapping. 

In classical understanding, education is the attempt to “lead out” from within the 

self a core of wisdom that has the power to resist falsehood and live in the light of 

truth, not by external norms but by reasoned and reflective self-determination. The 

inward teacher is the living core of our lives that is addressed and evoked by any 

education worthy of the name. 

 

Perhaps the idea is unpopular because it compels us to look at two of the most 

difficult truths about teaching. The first is that what we teach will never “take” un- 

less it connects with the inward, living core of our students' lives, with our stu- 

dents' inward teachers. 

 

We can, and do, make education an exclusively outward enterprise, forcing stu- 

dents to memorize and repeat facts without ever appealing to their inner truth— 

and we get predictable results: many students never want to read a challenging 

book or think a creative thought once they get out of school. The kind of teaching 

that transforms people does not happen if the student's inward teacher is ignored. 

 

The second truth is even more daunting: we can speak to the teacher within our 

students only when we are on speaking terms with the teacher within ourselves. 

 

The student who said that her bad teachers spoke like cartoon characters was de- 

scribing teachers who have grown deaf to their inner guide, who have so thor- 

oughly separated inner truth from outer actions that they have lost touch with a 

sense of self. Deep speaks to deep, and when we have not sounded our own 

depths, we cannot sound the depths of our students' lives. 

 

How does one attend to the voice of the teacher within? I have no particular meth- 

ods to suggest, other than the familiar ones: solitude and silence, meditative read- 

ing and walking in the woods, keeping a journal, finding a friend who will listen. I 

simply propose that we need to learn as many ways as we can of “talking to our- 

selves.” 

 

That phrase, of course, is one we normally use to name a symptom of mental 

imbalance—a clear sign of how our culture regards the idea of an inner voice! But 

people who learn to talk to themselves may soon delight in the discovery that the 

teacher within is the sanest conversation partner they have ever had. 

 

We need to find every possible way to listen to that voice and take its counsel seri- 

ously, not only for the sake of our work but for the sake of our own health as well. 

If someone in the outer world is trying to tell us something important and we ig- 

nore his or her presence, the person either gives up and stops speaking or be- 

comes more and more violent in attempting to get our attention. 

 

Similarly, if we do not respond to the voice of the inward teacher, it will either stop 

speaking or become violent: I am convinced that some forms of depression, of 

which I have personal experience, are induced by a long-ignored inner teacher try- 

ing desperately to get us to listen by threatening to destroy us. When we honor 

that voice with simple attention, it responds by speaking more gently and engag- 

ing us in a life-giving conversation of the soul. 

 

That conversation does not have to reach conclusions to be of value: we do not 

need to emerge from talking to ourselves with clear goals, objectives, and plans. 

Measuring the value of inner dialogue by its practical outcomes is like measuring 

the value of a friendship by the number of problems that are solved when friends 

get together. 

 

Conversation among friends has its own rewards: in the presence of our friends, 

we have the simple joy of feeling at ease, at home, trusted and able to trust. We at- 

tend to the inner teacher not to get fixed but to befriend the deeper self, to culti- 

vate a sense of identity and integrity that allows us to feel at home wherever we 

are. 

 

Listening to the inner teacher also offers an answer to one of the most basic ques- 

tions teachers face: How can I develop the authority to teach, the capacity to stand 

my ground in the midst of the complex forces of both the classroom and my own 

life? 

 

In a culture of technique, we often confuse authority with power, but the two are 

not the same. Power works from the outside in, but authority works from the in- 

side out. We are mistaken when we seek authority outside ourselves, in sources 

ranging from the subtle skills of group process to that less than subtle method of 

social control called grading. This view of teaching turns the teacher into the cop 

on the corner, trying to keep things moving amicably and by consent but always 

having recourse to the coercive power of the law. 

 

External tools of power have occasional utility in teaching, but they are no substi- 

tute for authority, the authority that comes from the teacher's inner life. The clue 

is in the word itself, which has author at its core. Authority is granted to people 

who are perceived as authoring their own words, their own actions, their own lives, 

rather than playing a scripted role at great remove from their own hearts. When 

teachers depend on the coercive powers of law or technique, they have no author- 

ity at all. 

 

I am painfully aware of the times in my own teaching when I lose touch with my 

inner teacher and therefore with my own authority. In those times I try to gain 

power by barricading myself behind the podium and my status while wielding the 

threat of grades. But when my teaching is authorized by the teacher within me, I 

need neither weapons nor armor to teach. 

 

Authority comes as I reclaim my identity and integrity, re-membering my selfhood 

and my sense of vocation. Then teaching can come from the depths of my own 

truth—and the truth that is within my students has a chance to respond in kind.

Notes 

 

1. May Sarton, in “Now I Become Myself,” Collected Poems, 1930–1973 (New 

York: Norton, 1974), p. 156. Copyright © 1993, 1988, 1984, 1947 by May Sar- 

ton. Reprinted by permission of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. 

2. Mohandas K. Gandhi, An Autobiography, or the Story of My Experiments with 

Truth (Ahmedabad, India: Navajivan Press, 1927). 

3. Cited in Earl Schwartz, “Chronic Life,” Creative Nursing, Feb. 1992, p. 58. 

4. Václav Havel, speech delivered to joint meeting of the U.S. Congress, quoted 

in Time, Mar. 5, 1990, pp. 14–15. 

5. Alice Kaplan, French Lessons: A Memoir (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 

1993), p. 209. 

6. Kaplan, French Lessons, pp. 210–211. 

7. Ibid., p. 216. 

8. C. Wright Mills, The Sociological Imagination (New York: Oxford University 

Press, 1959). 

9. Jane Tompkins, “Pedagogy of the Distressed,” College English, 1991, 52(6). 

10. Florida Scott-Maxwell, The Measure of My Days (New York: Penguin Books, 

1983), p. 42. 

11. Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking: A Seeker's ABC (San Francisco: 

HarperSanFrancisco, 1993), p. 119.

The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher's Life

The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher's Life:

The Teacher Within 

 

Encounters with mentors and subjects can awaken a sense of self and yield clues 

to who we are. But the call to teach does not come from external encounters 

alone—no outward teacher or teaching will have much effect until my soul as- 

sents. Any authentic call ultimately comes from the voice of the teacher within, the 

voice that invites me to honor the nature of my true self. 

 

By the voice of the inward teacher, I do not mean conscience or superego, moral ar- 

biter or internalized judge. In fact, conscience, as it is commonly understood, can 

get us into deep vocational trouble. 

 

When we listen primarily for what we “ought” to be doing with our lives, we may 

find ourselves hounded by external expectations that can distort our identity and 

integrity. There is much that I ought to be doing by some abstract moral calculus. 

But is it my vocation? Am I gifted and called to do it? Is this particular ought a 

place of intersection between my inner self and the outer world, or is it someone 

else's image of how my life should look? 

 

When I follow only the oughts, I may find myself doing work that is ethically laud- 

able but not mine to do. A vocation that is not mine, no matter how externally val- 

ued, does violence to the self—in the precise sense that it violates my identity and 

integrity on behalf of some abstract norm. When I violate myself, I invariably end 

up violating the people I work with. How many teachers inflict their own pain on 

their students, the pain that comes from doing what never was, or no longer is, 

their true work? 

 

In contrast to the strained and even violent concept of vocation as an ought, Fred- 

erick Buechner offers a more generous and humane image of vocation as “the 

place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet.”11 

 

In a culture that sometimes equates work with suffering, it is revolutionary to sug- 

gest that the best inward sign of vocation is deep gladness—revolutionary but 

true. If a work is mine to do, it will make me glad over the long haul, despite the 

difficult days. Even the difficult days will ultimately gladden me, because they pose 

the kinds of problems that can help me grow in a work if it is truly mine. 

 

If a work does not gladden me in these ways, I need to consider laying it down. 

When I devote myself to something that does not flow from my identity, that is 

not integral to my nature, I am most likely deepening the world's hunger rather 

than helping to alleviate it. 

 

There are times when we must work for money rather than meaning, and we may 

never have the luxury of quitting a job because it does not make us glad. But that 

does not release us from continually checking the violence we do to others and 

ourselves by working in ways that violate our souls. Nor does it relieve us from 

wondering whether preserving integrity is a luxury. What brings more security in 

the long run: holding this job or honoring my soul? 

 

The teacher within is not the voice of conscience but of identity and integrity. It 

speaks not of what ought to be but of what is real for us, of what is true. It says 

things like, “This is what fits you and this is what doesn't”; “This is who you are 

and this is who you are not”; “This is what gives you life and this is what kills your 

spirit—or makes you wish you were dead.” The teacher within stands guard at the 

gate of selfhood, warding off whatever insults our integrity and welcoming what- 

ever affirms it. The voice of the inward teacher reminds me of my truth as I nego- 

tiate the force field of my life. 

 

I realize that the idea of a teacher within strikes some academics as a romantic 

fantasy, but I cannot fathom why. If there is no such reality in our lives, centuries 

of Western discourse about the aims of education become so much lip-flapping. 

In classical understanding, education is the attempt to “lead out” from within the 

self a core of wisdom that has the power to resist falsehood and live in the light of 

truth, not by external norms but by reasoned and reflective self-determination. The 

inward teacher is the living core of our lives that is addressed and evoked by any 

education worthy of the name. 

 

Perhaps the idea is unpopular because it compels us to look at two of the most 

difficult truths about teaching. The first is that what we teach will never “take” un- 

less it connects with the inward, living core of our students' lives, with our stu- 

dents' inward teachers. 

 

We can, and do, make education an exclusively outward enterprise, forcing stu- 

dents to memorize and repeat facts without ever appealing to their inner truth— 

and we get predictable results: many students never want to read a challenging 

book or think a creative thought once they get out of school. The kind of teaching 

that transforms people does not happen if the student's inward teacher is ignored. 

 

The second truth is even more daunting: we can speak to the teacher within our 

students only when we are on speaking terms with the teacher within ourselves. 

 

The student who said that her bad teachers spoke like cartoon characters was de- 

scribing teachers who have grown deaf to their inner guide, who have so thor- 

oughly separated inner truth from outer actions that they have lost touch with a 

sense of self. Deep speaks to deep, and when we have not sounded our own 

depths, we cannot sound the depths of our students' lives. 

 

How does one attend to the voice of the teacher within? I have no particular meth- 

ods to suggest, other than the familiar ones: solitude and silence, meditative read- 

ing and walking in the woods, keeping a journal, finding a friend who will listen. I 

simply propose that we need to learn as many ways as we can of “talking to our- 

selves.” 

 

That phrase, of course, is one we normally use to name a symptom of mental 

imbalance—a clear sign of how our culture regards the idea of an inner voice! But 

people who learn to talk to themselves may soon delight in the discovery that the 

teacher within is the sanest conversation partner they have ever had. 

 

We need to find every possible way to listen to that voice and take its counsel seri- 

ously, not only for the sake of our work but for the sake of our own health as well. 

If someone in the outer world is trying to tell us something important and we ig- 

nore his or her presence, the person either gives up and stops speaking or be- 

comes more and more violent in attempting to get our attention. 

 

Similarly, if we do not respond to the voice of the inward teacher, it will either stop 

speaking or become violent: I am convinced that some forms of depression, of 

which I have personal experience, are induced by a long-ignored inner teacher try- 

ing desperately to get us to listen by threatening to destroy us. When we honor 

that voice with simple attention, it responds by speaking more gently and engag- 

ing us in a life-giving conversation of the soul. 

 

That conversation does not have to reach conclusions to be of value: we do not 

need to emerge from talking to ourselves with clear goals, objectives, and plans. 

Measuring the value of inner dialogue by its practical outcomes is like measuring 

the value of a friendship by the number of problems that are solved when friends 

get together. 

 

The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher's Life

The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher's Life:

Introduction 

Teaching from Within 

 

Ah, not to be cut off, 

not through the slightest partition 

shut out from the law of the stars. 

The inner—what is it? 

if not intensified sky, 

hurled through with birds and deep 

with the winds of homecoming. 

 

—Rainer Maria Rilke, “[Ah, not to be cut off]”1

==

We Teach Who We Are 

 

I am a teacher at heart, and there are moments in the classroom when I can hardly 

hold the joy. When my students and I discover un­charted territory to explore, 

when the pathway out of a thicket opens up before us, when our experience is illu- 

mined by the ­lightning-life of the mind—then teaching is the finest work I know. 

 

But at other moments, the classroom is so lifeless or painful or confused—and I 

am so powerless to do anything about it—that my claim to be a teacher seems a 

transparent sham. Then the enemy is everywhere: in those students from some 

alien planet, in that subject I thought I knew, and in the personal pathology that 

keeps me earning my living this way. What a fool I was to imagine that I had mas- 

tered this occult art—harder to divine than tea leaves and impossible for mortals 

to do even passably well! 

 

If you are a teacher who never has bad days, or who has them but does not care, 

this book is not for you. This book is for teachers who have good days and bad, 

and whose bad days bring the suffering that comes only from something one 

loves. It is for teachers who refuse to harden their hearts because they love learn- 

ers, learning, and the teaching life. 

 

When you love your work that much—and many teachers do—the only way to get 

out of trouble is to go deeper in. We must enter, not evade, the tangles of teaching 

so we can understand them better and negotiate them with more grace, not only 

to guard our own spirits but also to serve our students well. 

 

Those tangles have three important sources. The first two are commonplace, but 

the third, and most fundamental, is rarely given its due. First, the subjects we 

teach are as large and complex as life, so our knowledge of them is always flawed 

and partial. No matter how we devote ourselves to reading and research, teaching 

requires a command of content that always eludes our grasp. Second, the stu- 

dents we teach are larger than life and even more complex. To see them clearly 

and see them whole, and respond to them wisely in the moment, requires a fusion 

of Freud and Solomon that few of us achieve. 

 

If students and subjects accounted for all the complexities of teaching, our stan- 

dard ways of coping would do—keep up with our fields as best we can and learn 

enough techniques to stay ahead of the student psyche. But there is another rea- 

son for these complexities: we teach who we are. 

 

===

Teaching, like any truly human activity, emerges from one's inwardness, for better 

or worse. As I teach, I project the condition of my soul onto my students, my sub- 

ject, and our way of being together. The entanglements I experience in the class- 

room are often no more or less than the convolutions of my inner life. Viewed 

from this angle, teaching holds a mirror to the soul. If I am willing to look in that 

mirror and not run from what I see, I have a chance to gain self-knowledge—and 

knowing myself is as crucial to good teaching as knowing my students and my 

subject. 

 

In fact, knowing my students and my subject depends heavily on self-knowledge. 

When I do not know myself, I cannot know who my students are. I will see them 

through a glass darkly, in the shadows of my unexamined life—and when I cannot 

see them clearly, I cannot teach them well. When I do not know myself, I cannot 

know my subject—not at the deepest levels of embodied, personal meaning. I will 

know it only abstractly, from a distance, a congeries of concepts as far removed 

from the world as I am from personal truth. 

 

The work required to “know thyself” is neither selfish nor narcissistic. Whatever 

self-knowledge we attain as teachers will serve our students and our scholarship 

well. Good teaching requires self-knowledge: it is a secret hidden in plain sight.

===

Landscapes Inner and Outer 

 

This book explores the teacher's inner life, but it also raises a question that goes 

beyond the solitude of the teacher's soul: How can the teacher's selfhood become 

a legitimate topic in education and in our public dialogues on educational reform? 

 

Teaching and learning are critical to our individual and collective survival and to 

the quality of our lives. The pace of change has us snarled in complexities, confu- 

sions, and conflicts that will diminish us, or do us in, if we do not enlarge our 

capacity to teach and to learn. At the same time, teacher-bashing has become a 

popular sport. Panic-stricken by the demands of our day, we need scapegoats for 

the problems we cannot solve and the sins we cannot bear. 

 

Teachers make an easy target, for they are such a common species and so power- 

less to strike back. We blame teachers for being unable to cure social ills that no 

one knows how to treat; we insist that they instantly adopt whatever “solution” 

has most recently been concocted by our national panacea machine; and in the 

process, we demoralize, even paralyze, the very teachers who could help us find 

our way. 

 

In our rush to reform education, we have forgotten a simple truth: reform will 

never be achieved by renewing appropriations, restructuring schools, rewriting 

curricula, and revising texts if we continue to demean and dishearten the human 

resource called the teacher on whom so much depends. Teachers must be better 

compensated, freed from bureaucratic harassment, given a role in aca­demic 

governance, and provided with the best possible methods and materials. But none 

of that will transform education if we fail to cherish—and challenge—the human 

heart that is the source of good teaching. 

 

We are now engaged in a crucial public conversation about educational reform, 

but a conversation is only as good as the questions it entertains. This book raises 

a question about teaching that goes unasked in our national dialogue—and often 

goes unasked even in the places where teachers are educated and employed. But it 

should be asked wherever good teaching is at stake, for it honors and challenges 

the teacher's heart, and it invites a deeper inquiry than our traditional questions 

do: 

 

•The question we most commonly ask is the “what” question—what 

subjects shall we teach? 

 

•When the conversation goes a bit deeper, we ask the “how” ques- 

tion—what methods and techniques are required to teach well? 

 

•Occasionally, when it goes deeper still, we ask the “why” question— 

for what purpose and to what ends do we teach? 

 

•But seldom, if ever, do we ask the “who” question—who is the self 

that teaches? How does the quality of my selfhood form—or de- 

form—the way I relate to my students, my subject, my colleagues, my 

world? How can educational institutions sustain and deepen the self- 

hood from which good teaching comes? 

I have no quarrel with the what or how or why questions—except when they are 

posed as the only questions worth asking. All of them can yield important insights 

into teaching and learning. But none of them opens up the territory I want to ex- 

plore in this book: the inner landscape of the teaching self. 

 

To chart that landscape fully, three important paths must be taken—intellectual, 

emotional, and spiritual—and none can be ig­nored. Reduce teaching to intellect, 

and it becomes a cold abstraction; reduce it to emotions, and it becomes narcis- 

sistic; reduce it to the spiritual, and it loses its anchor to the world. Intellect, emo- 

tion, and spirit depend on one another for wholeness. They are interwoven in the 

human self and in education at its best, and I have tried to interweave them in this 

book as well. 

 

By intellectual I mean the way we think about teaching and learning—the form and 

content of our concepts of how people know and learn, of the nature of our stu- 

dents and our subjects. By emotional I mean the way we and our students feel as 

we teach and learn—feelings that can either enlarge or diminish the exchange be- 

tween us. By spiritual I mean the diverse ways we answer the heart's longing to be 

connected with the largeness of life—a longing that animates love and work, espe- 

cially the work called teaching. 

 

Rainer Maria Rilke gives voice to that longing in the poem at the head of this intro- 

duction: “Ah, not to be cut off ...” He suggests that the spiritual quest for connect- 

edness, rightly understood, will lead us out from the hidden heart into the vast 

and visible world: “The inner—what is it?/if not intensified sky,/hurled through 

with birds and deep/with the winds of homecoming.” 

 

With striking imagery, Rilke offers us a mystic's map of wholeness, where inner 

and outer reality flow seamlessly into each other, like the ever-merging surfaces of 

a Möbius strip, endlessly co-creating us and the world we inhabit. Though this 

book is grounded in the teacher's inner terrain, it constantly segues into the outer 

forms of community that teaching and learning require. The inward quest for 

communion becomes a quest for outward relationship: at home in our own souls, 

we become more at home with each other. 

 

My concern for the inner landscape of teaching may seem in­dulgent, even irrel- 

evant, at a time when many teachers are struggling simply to survive. Wouldn't it 

be more practical, I am sometimes asked, to offer tips, tricks, and techniques for 

staying alive in the classroom, things that ordinary teachers can use in everyday 

life? 

 

The question puzzles me, because for thirty years I have made practical use of the 

approach taken in this book, leading workshops and retreats for educators of all 

sorts. I have worked with countless teachers, and many of them have confirmed 

my own experience: as important as methods may be, the most practical thing we 

can achieve in any kind of work is insight into what is happening inside us as we 

do it. The more familiar we are with our inner terrain, the more surefooted our 

teaching—and living—becomes. 

 

I have heard that in the training of therapists, which involves much practical tech- 

nique, there is this saying: “Technique is what you use until the therapist arrives.” 

Good methods can help a therapist find a way into the client's dilemma, but good 

therapy does not begin until the real-life therapist joins with the real life of the 

client. 

 

Technique is what teachers use until the real teacher arrives, and this book is 

about helping that teacher show up. Yet even if it is true that inner work has prac- 

tical outcomes for individuals, the question of practicality arises in another form: 

How can educational institutions support the teacher's inner life, and should they 

be expected to do so? 

 

That question is worthy of a thoughtful answer, so Chapter VI is devoted to it. For 

the moment, I will turn the question around: How can schools educate students if 

they fail to support the teacher's inner life? To educate is to guide students on an 

inner journey toward more truthful ways of seeing and being in the world. How 

can schools perform their mission without encouraging the guides to scout out that inner terrain?

===

that inner terrain?

===

Note 

 

1. Stephen Mitchell (ed.), “Ah, Not to Be Cut Off,” in Ahead of All Parting: The 

Selected Poetry and Prose of Rainer Maria Rilke (New York: Modern Library, 

1995), p. 191.

===

Chapter I 

The Heart of a Teacher 

Identity and Integrity in Teaching 

 

Now I become myself. It's taken 

Time, many years and places; 

I have been dissolved and shaken, 

Worn other people's faces ... 

 

—May Sarton, “Now I Become Myself”1

===

Teaching Beyond Technique 

 

Not long before I started this book, as summer took a slow turn toward fall, I 

walked into a college classroom and into my third decade of teaching. 

 

I went to class that day grateful for another chance to teach; teaching engages my 

soul as much as any work I know. But I came home that evening convinced once 

again that I will never master this baffling vocation. Annoyed with some of my stu- 

dents and embarrassed by my own blunders, I pondered a recurring question: 

Might it be possible, at my age, to find a new line of work, maybe even something 

I know how to do? 

 

The students in my first section were silent as monks. Despite my shameless 

pleading, I could not buy a response from them, and I soon found myself sinking 

into one of my oldest phobias: I must be very boring to anesthetize, so quickly, 

these young people who only moments earlier had been alive with hallway chatter. 

 

In the second section they talked, but the talk flared into conflict as one student 

insisted that the concerns of another student were “petty” and did not deserve 

attention. I masked my irritation and urged open listening to diverse views, but the 

air was already polluted, and the dialogue died. That, of course, sank me into an- 

other ancient angst: how awkward I am at dealing with conflict when my students 

decide to start talking! 

 

I have taught thousands of students, attended many seminars on teaching, 

watched others teach, read about teaching, and reflected on my own experience. 

My stockpile of methods is substantial. But when I walk into a new class, it is as if 

I am starting over. My problems are perennial, familiar to all teachers. Still, they 

take me by surprise, and my responses to them—though outwardly smoother 

with each year—feel almost as fumbling as they did when I was a novice. 

 

After three decades of trying to learn my craft, every class comes down to this: my 

students and I, face to face, engaged in an ancient and exacting exchange called 

education. The techniques I have mastered do not disappear, but neither do they 

suffice. Face to face with my students, only one resource is at my immediate com- 

mand: my identity, my selfhood, my sense of this “I” who teaches—without which 

I have no sense of the “Thou” who learns. 

 

This book builds on a simple premise: good teaching cannot be re­duced to 

technique; good teaching comes from the identity and integrity of the teacher. 

 

The premise is simple, but its implications are not. It will take time to unfold what 

I do and do not mean by those words. But here is one way to put it: in every class I 

teach, my ability to connect with my students, and to connect them with the sub- 

ject, depends less on the methods I use than on the degree to which I know and 

trust my selfhood—and am willing to make it available and vulnerable in the ser- 

vice of learning. 

 

My evidence for this claim comes, in part, from years of asking students to tell me 

about their good teachers. Listening to those sto­ries, it becomes impossible to 

claim that all good teachers use similar techniques: some lecture nonstop and 

others speak very little; some stay close to their material and others loose the 

imagination; some teach with the carrot and others with the stick. 

 

But in every story I have heard, good teachers share one trait: a strong sense of 

personal identity infuses their work. “Dr. A is really there when she teaches,” a stu- 

dent tells me, or “Mr. B has such enthusiasm for his subject,” or “You can tell that 

this is really Prof. C's life.” 

 

One student I heard about said she could not describe her good teachers because 

they differed so greatly, one from another. But she could describe her bad teach- 

ers because they were all the same: “Their words float somewhere in front of their 

faces, like the balloon speech in cartoons.” 

 

With one remarkable image she said it all. Bad teachers distance themselves from 

the subject they are teaching—and in the process, from their students. Good 

teachers join self and subject and students in the fabric of life. 

 

Good teachers possess a capacity for connectedness. They are able to weave a 

complex web of connections among themselves, their subjects, and their students 

so that students can learn to weave a world for themselves. The methods used by 

these weavers vary widely: lectures, Socratic dialogues, laboratory experiments, 

collaborative problem solving, creative chaos. The connections made by good 

teachers are held not in their methods but in their hearts—meaning heart in its an- 

cient sense, as the place where intellect and emotion and spirit and will converge 

in the human self. 

 

As good teachers weave the fabric that joins them with students and subjects, the 

heart is the loom on which the threads are tied, the tension is held, the shuttle 

flies, and the fabric is stretched tight. Small wonder, then, that teaching tugs at the 

heart, opens the heart, even breaks the heart—and the more one loves teaching, 

the more heartbreaking it can be. The courage to teach is the courage to keep 

one's heart open in those very moments when the heart is asked to hold more 

than it is able so that teacher and students and subject can be woven into the fab- 

ric of community that learning, and living, require. 

 

If teaching cannot be reduced to technique, it is both good news and bad. The 

good news is that we no longer need suffer the boredom many of us feel when 

teaching is approached as a question of “how to do it.” We rarely talk with each 

other about teaching at any depth—and why should we when we have nothing 

more than “tips, tricks, and techniques” to discuss? That kind of talk fails to touch 

the heart of a teacher's experience. 

 

The good news gets even better. If teaching cannot be reduced to technique, I no 

longer need suffer the pain of having my peculiar gift as a teacher crammed into 

the Procrustean bed of someone else's method and the standards prescribed by 

it. That pain is felt throughout education today as we glorify the method du jour, 

leaving people who teach differently feeling devalued, forcing them to measure up 

to norms not their own. 

 

I will never forget one professor who, moments before I was to start a workshop 

on teaching, unloaded years of pent-up workshop animus on me: “I am an organic 

chemist. Are you going to spend the next two days telling me that I am supposed 

to teach organic chemistry through role playing?” We must find an approach to 

teaching that respects the diversity of teachers and subjects, which method- 

ological reductionism fails to do. 

 

The good news is very good, but the bad news is daunting. If identity and integrity 

are more fundamental to good teaching than technique—and if we want to grow 

as teachers—we must do something alien to academic culture: we must talk to 

each other about our inner lives—risky stuff in a profession that fears the per- 

sonal and seeks safety in the technical, the distant, the abstract. 

 

I was reminded of that fear recently as I listened to a group of faculty argue about 

what to do when students share personal ex­periences in class—experiences that 

are related to the themes of the course but that some professors regard as “more 

suited to a therapy session than to a college classroom.” 

 

The house soon divided along predictable lines. On one side were the scholars, 

insisting that the subject is primary and must never be compromised for the sake 

of the students' lives. On the other side were the student-centered folks, insisting 

that the lives of students must always come first even if it means that the subject 

gets shortchanged. The more vigorously these camps promoted their polarized 

ideas, the more antagonistic they became—and the less they learned about peda- 

gogy or about themselves. 

 

The gap between these views seems unbridgeable—until we understand what cre- 

ates it. At bottom, these professors were not debating teaching techniques. They 

were revealing the diversity of identity and integrity among themselves, saying, in 

various ways, “Here are my own limits and potentials when it comes to dealing 

with the relation between the subject and my students' lives.” 

 

If we stopped lobbing pedagogical points at each other and spoke about who we 

are as teachers, a remarkable thing might happen: identity and integrity might 

grow within us and among us, instead of hardening as they do when we defend 

our fixed positions from the foxholes of the pedagogy wars.

===

surrounds us. Now we must remind ourselves that inner reality can give us lever- 

age in the realm of objects and events. 

 

We will find such a reminder in the testimony of Václav Havel, poet and man of 

practical affairs, a leader in the Velvet Revolution that liberated Czechoslovakia 

from Soviet rule. It was a revolution that succeeded in the face of obstacles con- 

siderably more daunting than those stacked against educational reform. 

 

Havel, who served as the first president of the Czech Republic, writes about 

spending years “under a rock” of institutional oppression that was dropped on the 

Czech people in the Communist coup of 1968. Then he speaks of the inward seed 

of human consciousness and how it grew into a flower of reform that cracked and 

crumbled the granite of totalitarianism a mere twenty years later: “The ... expe- 

rience I'm talking about has given me one certainty: ... the salvation of this human 

world lies nowhere else than in the human heart, in the hu­man power to reflect, 

in human meekness and in human responsibility. Without a global revolution in ... 

human consciousness, nothing will change for the better, and the catastrophe to- 

ward which this world is headed ... will be unavoidable.”4 

 

Havel helped the Czech people reclaim their hearts by reminding them who they, 

and all of us, are: not victims of external forces but persons possessed of an inner 

power that cannot be taken from us, though we can and do give it away. 

 

Remembering ourselves and our power can lead to revolution, but it requires 

more than recalling a few facts. Re-membering involves putting ourselves back to- 

gether, recovering identity and integrity, reclaiming the wholeness of our lives. 

When we forget who we are we do not merely drop some data. We dis-member 

ourselves, with unhappy consequences for our politics, our work, our hearts. 

 

Academics often suffer the pain of dismemberment. On the surface, this is the 

pain of people who thought they were joining a community of scholars but find 

themselves in distant, competitive, and uncaring relationships with colleagues 

and students. Deeper down, this pain is more spiritual than sociological: it comes 

from being disconnected from our own truth, from the passions that took us into 

teaching, from the heart that is the source of all good work. 

 

If we have lost the heart to teach, how can we take heart again? How can we re- 

member who we are, for our own sake and the sake of those we serve?

===

Mentors Who Evoked Us 

 

If identity and integrity are found at the intersection of the forces that converge in 

our lives, revisiting some of the convergences that called us toward teaching may 

allow us to reclaim the selfhood from which good teaching comes. In this section 

and the next, I want to reflect on two such encounters—with the mentors who 

evoked us and with the subjects of study that chose us. 

 

The power of our mentors is not necessarily in the models of good teaching they 

gave us, models that may turn out to have little to do with who we are as teachers. 

Their power is in their capacity to awaken a truth within us, a truth we can reclaim 

years later by recalling their impact on our lives. If we discovered a teacher's heart 

in ourselves by meeting a great teacher, recalling that meeting may help us take 

heart in teaching once more. 

 

In faculty workshops, I often ask people to introduce themselves by talking about 

a teacher who made a difference in their lives. As these stories are told, we are re- 

minded of many facts about good teaching: that it comes in many forms, that the 

imprint of good teachers remains long after the facts they gave us have faded, and 

that it is important to thank our mentors, no matter how belatedly—partly because 

we owe them gratitude and partly as a cosmic counterpoint to the apparent ingrat- 

itude of our own students! 

 

Then I ask the question that opens to the deeper purpose of this exercise: not 

“What made your mentor great?” but “What was it about you that allowed great 

mentoring to happen?” Mentoring is a mutuality that requires more than meeting 

the right teacher: the teacher must meet the right student. In this encounter, not 

only are the qualities of the mentor revealed, but the qualities of the student are 

drawn out in a way that is equally revealing. 

 

One of my most memorable mentors was a man who seemed to break every 

“rule” of good teaching. He lectured at such length, and with such enthusiasm, 

that he left little room for questions and comments. Preoccupied with the world of 

thought, he listened poorly to students, not because he disdained them but be- 

cause he was so eager to teach them by the only way he knew—sharing his knowl- 

edge and passions. His classes were mostly monologues, and his students rarely 

played any role other than audience. 

 

He may sound like a pedagogical nightmare, but for reasons I could not articulate 

at the time, I was powerfully drawn to his teaching—indeed, he changed my life. 

Only years later did I understand my attraction and in that understanding are 

some clues to my identity. 

 

I was the first in my family to attend college. My family valued education, but it of- 

fered no exemplars of the intellectual life that has turned out to be my birthright 

gift. I kept that gift sealed in the box it came in all the way through high school, 

graduating somewhere below the median of my class, with a major in extracur- 

ricular activities. Not until the second semester of college did I open the box, get 

excited about what was in it, and start doing well at schoolwork, going on to grad- 

uate school and into an academic career. 

 

My loquacious professor in college gave me a first glimpse into this part of my- 

self. My excitement in listening to him lay less in what he said—though his ideas 

were exhilarating—than in discovering a dormant dimension of my identity. It did 

not matter to me that he violated most rules of good group process and even 

some rules of considerate personal relations. What mattered was that he gener- 

ously opened the life of his mind to me, giving full voice to the gift of thought. 

Something in me knew that this gift was mine as well, though it was years before I 

could fully trust that knowledge. 

 

Long into my career I harbored a secret sense that thinking and reading and writ- 

ing, as much as I loved them, did not qualify as “real work.” I taught and wrote, 

but I “justified” myself by working as an administrator for various institutions and 

projects—work that was practical and thus worthy, like that done by honored 

members of my family. Only in my mid-forties was I finally able to claim the life of 

the mind as the mainstay of my vocation, to trust the calling of my soul, a trust 

that deepened when I was able to decode this early ­experience of being mentored. 

 

As we recall our mentors, not all of our self-insights are as happy as the one I have 

just drawn. We sometimes take the wrong lessons from the mentors who draw us 

when we are young and impressionable. 

 

I witnessed such a case at a faculty workshop I led a few years ago. My on-campus 

host had taken pains to warn me about Professor X, a curmudgeonly and unpop- 

ular teacher, though brilliant in his scholarly field. Of the forty people in the work- 

shop, my host said, Professor X had probably signed up not to learn about teach- 

ing but to debunk what we were doing. 

 

In trepidation, I began the workshop with something “soft,” inviting people to 

introduce themselves by talking about their mentors. By the time we got to Pro- 

fessor X, six or eight people had spoken, many with insight and feeling, and a spir- 

it of openness filled the room. I tensed as he began to speak, fearing that this spir- 

it was about to be killed. But it soon became clear that he, too, had been touched 

by the quality of the exchange. 

 

He told the story of his mentor with the hesitancy that comes from speaking of sa- 

cred things and—as he talked about how hard he had tried to model his own ca- 

reer after his mentor's—he surprised us, and surely himself, by choking up. 

 

Later, in private conversation with him, I learned the reason for his emotions. For 

twenty years, Professor X had tried to imitate his mentor's way of teaching and 

being, and it had been a disaster. He and his mentor were very different people, 

and X's attempt to clone his mentor's style had distorted his own identity and in- 

tegrity. He had lost himself in an identity not his own—a painful insight that took 

courage to embrace, but one with the promise of growth. 

 

Professor X's story gave me some insight into myself, an ex­ample of the mutual 

illumination that often occurs when we are willing to explore our inner dynamics 

with each other. Early in my career, I, too, had tried to emulate my mentor with 

nonstop lecturing, until I realized that my students were even less enthralled by 

my cheap imitation than some of my classmates had been by the genuine original. 

 

I began to look for a way to teach that was more integral to my own nature, a way 

that would have as much integrity for me as my mentor's had for him—for the key 

to my mentor's power was the coherence between his method and himself. I 

began the long process of trying to understand my own nature as a teacher and to 

learn the techniques that might help it along. 

 

Though I need sometimes to lecture and may even enjoy doing it, lecturing all the 

time simply bores me: I usually know what I am going to say, and I have heard it 

all before. But dialogical methods of teaching help keep me alive. Forced to listen, 

respond, and improvise, I am more likely to hear something unexpected and in- 

sightful from myself as well as others. 

 

That does not mean that lecturing is the wrong way to teach. It simply means that 

my identity, unlike my mentor's, is more fulfilled in dialogue. When I was young 

and did not know who I was, I needed someone to model the intellectual gift that 

might be mine. But now, in midlife, knowing myself better, my identity demands 

that I use my gift in interaction and interdependence with others. 

 

Here, I believe, is the proper and powerful role of technique: as we learn more 

about who we are, we can learn techniques that reveal rather than conceal the person- 

hood from which good teaching comes. We no longer need to use technique to mask 

the subjective self, as the culture of professionalism encourages us to do. Now we 

can use technique to manifest more fully the gift of self from which our best 

teaching comes. 

 

The self-knowledge that comes from these reflections is crucial to my teaching, 

for it reveals a complexity within me that is within my students as well. In my case, 

the “I” who teaches is both intimidated by and attracted to the life of the mind; for 

a long time it was be­­deviled by a sense that the intellectual work it felt called to 

do was none­theless a fraud. This “I,” despite its intrigue with ideas, was once so 

un­sure of itself that it welcomed a mentor whose performance barred partic- 

ipation. But today, this same “I” finds its own performance boring and needs to 

be nurtured in dialogue. 

 

When I forget my own inner multiplicity and my own long and continuing journey 

toward selfhood, my expectations of students become excessive and unreal. If I 

can remember the inner pluralism of my own soul and the slow pace of my own 

self-emergence, I will be better able to serve the pluralism among my students at 

the pace of their young lives. By remembering our mentors, we remember our- 

selves—and by remembering ourselves, we remember our students. 

 

Looking back, I realize that I was blessed with mentors at every crucial stage of my 

young life, at every point where my identity needed to grow: in adolescence, in col- 

lege, in graduate school, and early in my professional career. But a funny thing 

happened on the way to full adulthood: the mentors stopped coming. For several 

years I waited for the next one in vain, and for several years my own growth was 

on hold. 

 

Then I realized what was happening. I was no longer an apprentice, so I no longer 

needed mentors. It was my turn to become a mentor to someone else. I needed to 

turn around and look for the new life emerging behind me, to offer to younger 

people the gift that had been given to me when I was young. As I did, my identity 

and integrity had new chances to evolve in each new encounter with my students' 

lives. 

 

Mentors and apprentices are partners in an ancient human dance, and one of 

teaching's great rewards is the daily chance it gives us to get back on the dance 

floor. It is the dance of the spiraling generations, in which the old empower the 

young with their experience and the young empower the old with new life, reweav- 

ing the fabric of the human community as they touch and turn.

===

Subjects That Chose Us 

 

Many of us were called to teach by encountering not only a mentor but also a par- 

ticular field of study. We were drawn to a body of knowledge because it shed light 

on our identity as well as on the world. We did not merely find a subject to 

teach—the subject also found us. We may recover the heart to teach by remem- 

bering how that subject evoked a sense of self that was only dormant in us before 

we encountered the subject's way of naming and framing life. 

 

Alice Kaplan is a teacher of French language and literature, and she has done this 

kind of remembering in a book called French Lessons. “Why do people want to 

adopt another culture?” she asks as she summarizes her journey into teaching 

and into life. “Because there's something in their own they don't like, that doesn't 

name them.”5 French culture gave Kaplan a way of claiming an identity and in- 

tegrity she could not find in the culture to which she was born. 

 

Recalling a course she taught in which a bigoted young man learned to appreciate 

the stranger through encountering another people in another language, Kaplan re- 

flects: “Moments like this make me think that speaking a foreign language is ... a 

chance for growth, for freedom, for liberation from the ugliness of our received 

ideas and mentalities.”6 

 

But Kaplan also understands the shadow side of a borrowed identity: “Learning 

French did me some harm by giving me a place to hide. If life got too messy, I 

could take off into my second world.” But, she says, “writing about it has made 

me air my suspicions, my anger, my longings, to people for whom it's come as a 

total surprise.”7 The self-knowledge she gained by asking why she was attracted to 

her field helped her reconnect, wrestle with, and even redeem troubling events 

and relationships in her life, renewing her teacher's heart. 

 

Reading Kaplan's reflections (richer by far in shadow and light than my brief re- 

view suggests), I was encouraged to make my own. My undergraduate majors 

were philosophy and sociology, and many of the details I once knew about those 

fields have long since leached away. But I still recall, thirty-five years later, the mo- 

ment I discovered C. Wright Mills's idea of the “sociological imagination.”8 I was 

not merely taken with it—I was possessed by it. 

 

The essence of his idea is simple, but it was radical to me: we cannot see what is 

“out there” merely by looking around. Everything depends on the lenses through 

which we view the world. By putting on new lenses, we can see things that would 

otherwise remain invisible. 

 

Mills taught me how to view the world through the lenses of social theory, and 

when I took my first look, the world jumped out at me as if I had donned the 3-D 

movie glasses that Hollywood was hawking at the time. I saw the invisible struc- 

tures and secret signals that shape our social lives, that have a power over us that 

I thought re­sided only in face-to-face relationships. I was astonished at this new 

vision of life in which people walked about, not freely, as I had imagined, but con- 

trolled by strings attached to their minds and hearts by invisible puppeteers. 

 

Why was I so deeply drawn to the idea of the sociological imagination? Why did it 

become such a defining feature of my worldview? By reflecting on those ques- 

tions, I have re-membered some key features of who I am. 

 

Intellectually, the idea of the sociological imagination spoke to me because at age 

eighteen I had begun to understand that what you see is not necessarily what you 

get. I was a child of the 1950s, with its many social fictions, so it took time for me 

to see that the visible performance of individuals and groups was only the “on- 

stage” aspect of things, that reality has “backstage” dynamics far more influential 

than the performance we see up front. 

 

But my attraction to Mills's concept was more than intellectual—it helped me 

come to terms with some of my deepest personal fears. As a young person, I 

found the on-stage world both seductive and intimidating. It was an arena of visi- 

bility where I wanted to perform and become known, but also an arena where my 

competence would be tested and surely found wanting. As I came to understand 

the backstage realities revealed by the sociological imagination, I was able to 

shake off some of my performance fears. 

 

By looking backstage and seeing how human, how klutzy, how ordinary the 

mechanics of performance really are—how unlike the glitz and glamour of on- 

stage performance itself—I could ask myself, “If they can do it, why not me?” This 

backstage knowledge gave me the comfort of knowing that all heroes have feet of 

clay; it had the calming effect of the counsel given to nervous public speakers, 

“Imagine your audience naked.” 

 

But my attraction to the sociological imagination went deeper still—beyond intel- 

lectual interest, beyond performance fears, to a gap within my own soul. Mills's 

distinction between the on-stage show and backstage reality mirrored a great di- 

vide in my inner life. Outwardly, I had learned how to make my performance seem 

relatively smooth and accomplished, but inwardly, I felt anxious and fumbling and 

inept. 

 

The constant contradiction between how I experienced myself and how other peo- 

ple viewed me created a painful, sometimes crippling sense of fraudulence. But 

the sociological imagination and its view of societal duplicity helped me under- 

stand how common that contradiction is, how basic to the human condition, and 

my sense of fraudulence became less onerous. 

 

It has taken me a long time to turn Mills's insight from an analysis of our society 

toward an understanding of myself. The sociological imagination is easily used as 

one of those “debunking” tools, beloved of social science, that allows us to stand 

detached by the side of the road as the parade passes by, sniping at its silliness 

and pretending to be above it all. 

 

For a long time, I stood off to the side as critic and judge, and now I understand 

why: I was projecting onto society all the fraudulence I felt but could not face in 

myself, and I was using that projection as a way of evading my own dividedness. I 

no longer want to live that way—which is why I take pains in my writing to 

counterbalance the truth of the sociological imagination. 

 

Earlier in this chapter, I insisted that our inner world has a reality and a power that 

can keep us from being victims of circumstance and compel us to take respon- 

sibility for our own lives. In effect, I argued that the world of social structures and 

signals need not dictate our lives, that the sociological imagination that so en- 

tranced me as a young man (and has its grip on me yet) does not hold all the an- 

swers. In the very act of writing this chapter, I have been encountering my sub- 

ject—and myself—anew, still respectful of the power of social facts but unwilling 

to use that knowledge as an escape from personal responsibility. 

 

What I have learned about my identity as a teacher from this re-membering is, to 

some extent, encouraging: I would not be an advocate of the power of inner reality 

if I had not reached some degree of congruence between my on-stage and back- 

stage lives. 

 

But I have also learned that my conflict between on-stage and backstage reality is 

far from being resolved—it continues to come up in my teaching. That conflict 

was the theme of the teaching stories I told at the start of this chapter, stories 

whose drama, such as it is, lies in the tension between my external response to 

classroom events and my internal sense of incompetence. 

 

One of my favorite essays on teaching is Jane Tompkins's “Pedagogy of the 

Distressed.”9 It seems to have been written directly to my divided condition. With 

wonderful candor, Tompkins says that her obsession as a teacher had not been 

with helping students learn what they wanted and needed to know but rather with 

“(a) showing the students how smart I was; (b) showing them how knowl- 

edgeable I was; and (c) showing them how well prepared I was for class. I had 

been putting on a performance whose true goal was not to help the students learn 

but to act in such a way that they would have a good opinion of me.” 

 

Then she asks, “How did it come to be that our main goal as academicians turned 

out to be performance?” Her answer rings true to me—fear: “Fear of being shown 

up for what you are: a fraud, stupid, ignorant, a clod, a dolt, a sap, a weakling, 

someone who can't cut the mustard.” 

 

That is how it sometimes is for me. Driven by fear that my back­stage ineptitude 

will be exposed, I strive to make my on-stage performance slicker and smoother— 

and in the process, make it less and less likely that my students will learn anything 

other than how to cover up and show off. I conceal my own heart and am unable 

to weave the fabric of connectedness that teaching and learning require. 

 

Once again: when I seek my identity and integrity, what I find is not always a 

proud and shining thing. The discoveries I make about myself when I remember 

the encounters that have shaped and revealed my selfhood are sometimes embar- 

rassing—but they are also real. Whatever the cost in embarrassment, I will know 

myself better, and thus be a better teacher, when I acknowledge the forces at play 

within me instead of allowing them to wreak witless havoc on my work. 

 

Florida Scott-Maxwell, writing in her mid-eighties, made the point powerfully: 

“You need only claim the events of your life to make yourself yours. When you 

truly possess all you have been and done ... you are fierce with reality.”10

===

The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher's Life 0 CONTENTS

The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher's Life

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 

A Wiley Brand 

One Montgomery Street, Suite 1000, San Francisco, CA 

94104-4594—www.josseybass.com 

 

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or 

transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, 

recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of 

the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission 

of the publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee 

to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, 

978-750-8400, fax 978-646-8600, or on the Web at www.copyright.com. Requests 

to the publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Depart- 

ment, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, 201-748-6011, 

fax 201-748-6008, or online at www.wiley.com/go/permissions. 

 

Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have 

used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or 

warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this 

book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness 

for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales rep- 

resentatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein 

may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional 

where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor author shall be liable for any loss of 

profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, inci- 

dental, consequential, or other damages. Readers should be aware that Internet 

Web sites offered as citations and/or sources for further information may have 

changed or disappeared between the time this was written and when it is read. 

 

Credits are on pages 247–248. 

 

Jossey-Bass books and products are available through most bookstores. To con- 

tact Jossey-Bass directly call our Customer Care Department within the U.S. at 

800-956-7739, outside the U.S. at 317-572-3986, or fax 317-572-4002. 

 

Wiley publishes in a variety of print and electronic formats and by print-on- 

de-mand. Some material included with standard print versions of this book may 

not be included in e-books or in print-on-demand. If this book refers to media 

such as a CD or DVD that is not included in the version you purchased, you may 

download this material at http://booksupport.wiley.com. For more information 

about Wiley products, visit www.wiley.com. 

 

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

The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher's Life, 10th Anniversary Edition - Palmer, Parker J. | 9780787996864 | Amazon.com.au | Books

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"This book is for teachers who have good days and bad ? and whose bad days bring the suffering that comes only from something one loves. It is for teachers who refuse to harden their hearts, because they love learners, learning, and the teaching life." ? Parker J. Palmer [from the Introduction]

For many years, Parker Palmer has worked on behalf of teachers and others who choose their vocations for reasons of the heart but may lose heart because of the troubled, sometimes toxic systems in which they work. Hundreds of thousands of readers have benefited from his approach in THE COURAGE TO TEACH, which takes teachers on an inner journey toward reconnecting with themselves, their students, their colleagues, and their vocations, and reclaiming their passion for one of the most challenging and important of human endeavors.

This book builds on a simple premise: good teaching cannot be reduced to technique but is rooted in the identity and integrity of the teacher. Good teaching takes myriad forms but good teachers share one trait: they are authentically present in the classroom, in community with their students and their subject. They possess "a capacity for connectedness" and are able to weave a complex web of connections between themselves, their subjects, and their students, helping their students weave a world for themselves. The connections made by good teachers are held not in their methods but in their hearts ? the place where intellect, emotion, spirit, and will converge in the human self ? supported by the community that emerges among us when we choose to live authentic lives.

BONUS: Includes an audio CD featuring a 45-minute conversation between Parker Palmer and his colleagues, Marcy Jackson and Estrus Tucker from the Center for Courage & Renewal. They reflect on what they have learned from working with thousands of teachers in their "Courage to Teach" program (www.CourageRenewal.org)and with others who yearn for greater integrity in their professional lives.

Note: CD-ROM/DVD and other supplementary materials are not included as part of eBook file.
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"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 of Wherever You Go, There You Are

For nearly forty years, Parker Palmer has worked on behalf of teachers and others who choose vocations for reasons of the heart but may lose heart because of the troubled, sometimes toxic systems in which they work. Hundreds of thousands of readers have benefited from The Courage to Teach, which takes teachers on an inner journey toward reconnecting with themselves, their students, and their colleagues, and toward reclaiming vocational passion.

The Courage to Teach builds on a simple premise: good teaching cannot be reduced to technique but is rooted in the identity and integrity of the teacher. Good teaching takes myriad forms but good teachers share one trait: they are authentically present in the classroom, deeply connected with their students and their subject. These connections are held in the teacher′s heart the place where intellect, emotion, spirit, and converge in the human self. Good teachers weave a life–giving web between themselves, their subjects, and their students, helping their students learn how to weave a world for themselves.

In a new Foreword and Afterword to this tenth anniversary edition, Parker Palmer reflects on a decade of movement–building during which he and his colleagues at the Center for Courage & Renewal have helped thousands of teachers and others restore identity and integrity to professional life. On the accompanying audio CD, Parker and his colleagues, Marcy Jackson, and Estrus Tucker, talk about the Center′s on–the–ground work and share their hopes for this movement toward human wholeness and community.
From the Back Cover


Celebrating 10 Years of The Courage to Teach

I am a teacher at heart, and there are moments in the classroom when I can hardly hold the joy. . . . But at other moments, the classroom is so lifeless or painful or confused and I am so powerless to do anything about it that my claim to be a teacher seems a transparent sham. . . . If you are a teacher who never has bad days, or who has them but does not care, this book is not for you. This book is for teachers who have good days and bad, and whose bad days bring the suffering that comes only from something one loves. It is for teachers who refuse to harden their hearts because they love learners, learning, and the teaching life.
From the Introduction

Today, ten years after the publication of The Courage to Teach, I am more hopeful than ever about the potential for education reform because this book has helped me meet so many people who care passionately about teaching and learning and are willing to act on their passion. "Exploring the inner landscape of a teacher′s life" allows us to return, grounded and renewed, to the outer landscape of our lives. Having taken heart in the work to which we are called, we can give heart once again to our students, our colleagues, our schools, and our world a world where heartlessness yields only to gifts and graces that come from within.
Adapted from the Foreword to the 10th Anniversary Edition

CD included with exclusive conversation with Parker J. Palmer about the Courage to Teach Movement past, present, and future.

About the Author
Parker J. Palmer is a highly respected writer, lecturer, teacher, and activist. His work speaks deeply to people in many walks of life, including education, medicine, religion, law, philanthropy, the public sector, and social change. Author of seven books, including the bestsellers Let Your Life Speak and A Hidden Wholeness, his writing has been recognized with ten honorary doctorates and a number of national awards. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley and lives in Madison, Wisconsin.
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Product details
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Wiley US; 1st edition (7 August 2007)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 272 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0787996866
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0787996864
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 15.75 x 2.79 x 22.61 cmCustomer Reviews:
4.5 out of 5 stars 314 ratings






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Parker J. Palmer


PARKER J. PALMER is a writer, teacher, and activist whose work speaks deeply to people in many walks of life. Author of ten books—including several best-selling and award-winning titles—that have sold two million copies, Palmer is the Founder and Senior Partner Emeritus of the Center for Courage & Renewal. He holds a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of California at Berkeley, as well as thirteen honorary doctorates, two Distinguished Achievement Awards from the National Educational Press Association, and an Award of Excellence from the Associated Church Press. In 1998, the Leadership Project, a national survey of 10,000 educators, named him one of the 30 most influential senior leaders in higher education and one of the 10 key agenda-setters of the past decade. In 2010, he was given the William Rainey Harper Award (previously won by Margaret Mead, Marshall McLuhan, Paulo Freire, and Elie Wiesel). In 2011, the Utne Reader named him as one of "25 Visionaries Who Are Changing Your World.” In 2021, the Freedom of Spirit Fund, a UK-based foundation, gave him their "Lifetime Achievement Award” in honor of work that promotes and protects spiritual freedom. For 20-plus years, the Accrediting Commission for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) has given annual Parker J. Palmer “Courage to Teach” and “Courage to Lead” Awards to directors of exemplary medical residency programs. "Living the Questions: Essays Inspired by the Work and Life of Parker J. Palmer," was published in 2005. Born and raised in the Chicago area, he has lived in NYC, Berkeley, CA, Washington, DC, and Philadelphia, PA. He currently lives in Madison, Wisconsin.

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Leitir
4.0 out of 5 stars A most thought-provoking read on some of the core human dynamics of teachingReviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 28 December 2015
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This book was recommended to me by a fellow teacher who had shaped much of their support work for teachers around its core values. Parker Palmer makes a strong, cogent and consistent argument for inclusion of the inner self in all aspects of professional learning throughout the continuum of teacher education. He acknowledges that there is a risk that the discourse could become touchy-feely, but shows in a number of ways that this can only happen if we allow it to happen - the macrocosm of the point of authentic agency that runs throughout the entire book. He suggests some methods by which we could help each other connect with that inner voice so as to anchor and articulate our identity and integrity. Definitely worth reading if you care about learning about the possible future of the teaching profession.
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Miss R Richards
5.0 out of 5 stars Pure geniusReviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 15 July 2013
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This is a really humane way of looking at teaching. I found myself so absorbed in this book that I read it in a day. Parker Palmer's work should be on the bookshelves of every educational institution around the globe.

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AMY
5.0 out of 5 stars An amazingly written book- Parker Palmer, The courage to teach.Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 17 November 2016
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A book that has made a huge impression on me. It needs to be on every teacher training course's 'essential reading' book list.

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yes I was happy with the condition of the book
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The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher's Life

by Parker J. Palmer

 3.97  ·   Rating details ·  3,951 ratings  ·  412 reviews

"This book is for teachers who have good days and bad -- and whose bad days bring the suffering that comes only from something one loves. It is for teachers who refuse to harden their hearts, because they love learners, learning, and the teaching life."

- Parker J. Palmer [from the Introduction] Teachers choose their vocation for reasons of the heart, because they care deeply about their students and about their subject. But the demands of teaching cause too many educators to lose heart. Is it possible to take heart in teaching once more so that we can continue to do what good teachers always do -- give heart to our students?

In The Courage to Teach, Parker Palmer takes teachers on an inner journey toward reconnecting with their vocation and their students -- and recovering their passion for one of the most difficult and important of human endeavors. (less)

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Published December 5th 1997 by Jossey-Bass (first published November 21st 1997)

Original TitleThe Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher's Life

ISBN0787910589  (ISBN13: 9780787910587)

Edition LanguageEnglish

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Kendel Christensen

Nov 24, 2011Kendel Christensen rated it it was ok

I think the genius of this book was just lost on me. I really resonated with the beginning that talked about the "teacher within" and the "unique subjectivity" that each person can bring to the profession. I certainly feel like I have a unique perspective, and that my viewpoints and even personality makes my classroom unique (If I was given the freedom to unleash my style freely).

But the core of the book, I just didn't have the mental patience at this time in my life to take the time to fully process and appreciate. When he started the whole metaphysical debate about the nature of reality and how to establish genuine communities... I just stopped reading. At least for now, I need something more tangible--something I could do in class tomorrow to make a difference in my classroom.

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Jenny (Reading Envy)

Jun 20, 2021Jenny (Reading Envy) rated it it was amazing  ·  review of another edition

Shelves: read2021, higher-ed, librarianship, june, faculty-development

The Cothran Center for Vocational Reflection where I work offered this as a summer group read for faculty and staff, and I'd meant to read it forever, so jumped in. Tomorrow we'll have a Zoom session with the author. There are a lot of good things to talk about and a lot of directions the discussions have led us in. I'm interested in hearing more. (less)

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Laurel

Jul 28, 2007Laurel rated it liked it

The one complaint I have, even though this is a book I keep near me all school year, is that it's a little bit too "self-helpy/new-agey/mystical". But, that aside, it's helped me to be a more confidant teacher. Palmer talks about how teaching is a profession where you HAVE to be yourself or you won't have integrity. It's about letting who you are as a person inform your instruction. Once you've lost the ability to do that, it's impossible to do your job well. Full of anecdotes from Palmer's own career. (less)

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Cappy

May 22, 2009Cappy rated it really liked it  ·  review of another edition

Shelves: education

This book teaches teachers how to teach like the teachers they already are.

"The personal can never be divorced from the professional. 'We teach who we are' in times of darkness as well as light." (pg. xi)

Consider a teacher's "heart-deep commitment that keeps them coming back to the classroom - their commitment to the well-being of our children." (pg. xii)

"But at other moments, the classroom is so lifeless or painful or confused - and I am powerless to do anythign about it - that my claim to be a teacher seems a transparent sham." (pg. 2)

"The subjects we teach are as large and complex as life, so our knowledge of them is always flawed and partial. No matter how we devote ourselves to reading and research, teaching requires a command of content that always eludes our grasp. The students we teach are larger than life and even more complex. To see them clearly and see them whole, and respond to them wisely in the moment, requires a fusion of Freud and Solomon that few of us achieve." (pg. 2)

"Teachers make an easy target, for they are such a common species and so powerless to strike back." (pg. 3)

"Technique is what teachers use until the real teacher arrives." (pg. 6)

"Good teaching cannot be reduced to technique; good teaching comes from the identity and integrity of the teacher." (pg. 10)

"Good teachers possess a capacity for connectedness. They are able to weave a complex web of connections among themselves, their subjects, and their students." (pg. 11)

"The more one loves teaching, the more heartbreaking it can be." (pg. 11)

"Identity and integrity have as much to do with our shadows and limits, our wounds and fears, as with our strengths and potentials." (pg. 13)

"Part of the mystery of selfhood is the fact that one size does not fit all: what is integral to one person lacks integrity for another." (pg. 16)

"Many of us became teachers for reasons of the heart, animated by a passion for some subject and for helping people learn...We lose heart, in part, because teaching is a daily exercise in vulnerability." (pg. 17)

"We became teachers because we once believed that ideas and insight are at least as real and powerful as the world that surrounds us." (pg. 20)

"[Good teaching:] comes in many forms, the imprint of good teachers remains long after the facts they gave us have faded, and it is important to thank our mentors, no matter how belatedly - partly because we owe them gratitude and partly as a cosmic counterpoint to the apparent ingratitude of our own students." (pg. 22)

Consider speaking with "the hesitancy that comes from speaking of sacred things." (pg. 24)

"All heroes have feet of clay." (pg. 28)

"Measuring the value of inner dialogue by its practical outcomes is like measuring the value of friendship by the number of problems that are solved when friends get together." (pg. 33)

"As a teacher, I am at my worst when fear takes the lead in me, whether that means teaching in fear of my students or manipulating their fears of me." (pg. 36)

"When a class that has gone badly comes to a merciful end, I am fearful long after it is over - fearful that I am not just a bad teacher but a bad person, so closely is my sense of self tied to the work I do." (pg. 37)

"As soon as we admit pluralism, we are forced to admit that ours is not the only standpoint, the only experience, the only way, and the truths we have built our lives on begin to feel fragile." (pg. 38)

"We still face one final fear - the fear that a live encounter with otherness will challenge or even compel us to change our lives. This is not paranoia: the world really is out to get us!" (pg. 39)

"Faced with the Student from Hell, I committed the most basic mistake of the greenest neophyte: I became totally obsessed with him, and everyone else in the room disappeared from my screen." (pg. 44)

"Self-pity and projected blame - the recipe for a well-lived life!" (pg. 44)

"The Student from Hell is not born that way but is created by conditions beyond his or her control. Yes one or two of them may have been sent here directly by Satan to destroy Western civilization as we know and love it. But..." (pg. 45)

"Students are marginalized people in our society." (pg. 45)

"In unguarded moments with close friends, we who teach will acknowledge a variety of fears: having our work go unappreciated, being inadequately rewarded, discovering one fine morning that we chose the wrong profession, spending our lives on trivia, ending up feeling like frauds. But many of us have another fear that we rarely name: our fear of the judgment of the young." (pg. 48)

"Teachers age at a geometric rate: my best guess is that most teachers reach midlife by the time they turn twenty-nine!" (pg. 49)

"Knowing of any sort is relational, animated by a desire to come into deeper community with what we know." (pg. 55)

"Fear is so fundamental to the human condition that all the great spiritual traditions originate in an effort to overcome its effects on our lives." (pg. 58)

"My intent is to rebalance the scales. But in a polarizing culture, it is hard to do that without slamming the scales in the opposite direction." (pg. 64)

"In certain circumstances, truth is found not by splitting the world into either-ors but by embracing it as both-and." (pg. 65)

"I ask each teacher to write brief descriptions of two moments in teaching: a moment when things were going so well that you knew you were born to teach and a moment when things were going so poorly that you wished you had never been born...Remembering such moments is the first step in exploring one of the true paradoxes of teaching: the same person who teaches brilliantly one day can be an utter flop the next!" (pg. 69)

"Every strength is also a weakness, a limitation, a dimension of identity that serves me and others well under some circumstances but not all the time." (pg. 74)

"Teaching and learning require a higher degree of awareness than we ordinarily possess." (pg. 76)

"The teacher's task is to listen for what the group voice is saying and to play that voice back from time to time so the group can hear and even change its own collective mind." (pg. 78)

"Psychologists say that a typical group can abide about fifteen seconds of silence before someone feels the need to break the tension by speaking." (pg. 80)

"The silences that interest me are the ones that occur midstream in a discussion, when a point is made or a question is posed that evokes no immediate response." (pg. 85)

"We want our children and our students to become people who think and live freely, yet at the same time we know that helping them become free requires us to restirct their freedom in certain situations...and there is no formula to tell me whether this is a moment for freedom or discipline or some alchemy of both." (pg. 87)

"Community is an outward and visible sign of an inward and invisible grace." (pg. 92)

"Of course, we cannot demand intimacy of each other - and when we try, we only drive each other off, as many failed communal experiments have shown." (pg. 93)

"Most of us will achieve genuine intimacy with only a handful of people in a lifetime." (pg. 93)

"High school and college classrooms contain a broader cross section of people engaged in common work - and often doing it with civility, media-fueled 'political correctness' wars notwithstanding - than one can find in many settings." (pg. 95)

"We lack reliable mechanisms for evaluating teaching, unless one believes that all varieties of good teaching can be crammed into the scales of a survey questionnaire." (pg. 96)

"Students who have been well served by good teachers may walk away angry - angry that their prejudices have been challenged and their sense of self shaken. This sort of dissatisfaction may be a sign that real education has happened." (pg. 96-97)

"Experts, people trained to know [objects of knowledge:] in their pristine form without allowing their own subjectivity to slop over into the purity of the objects themselves. This training transpires in a far-off place called graduate school, whose purpose is so thoroughly to obliterate one's sense of self that one becomes a secular priest, a safe bearer of the pure objects of knowledge." (pg. 102)

"At its best, the community of truth advances our knowledge through conflict, not competition. Competition is a secretive, zero-sum game played by individuals for private gain; conflict is open and sometimes raucous but always communal." (pg. 106)

"Truth is an eternal conversation about things that matter, conducted with passion and discipline." (pg. 106)

"The things of this world call to us, and we are drawn to them - each of us to different things." (pg. 108)

"We are whiplashed between an arrogant overestimation of ourselves and a servile underestimation of ourselves, but the outcome is always the same: a distortion of the humble yet exalted reality of the human self, a paradoxical pearl of great price." (pg. 113)

"I am well aware that the marriage of knowing and the sacred has not always produced admirable offspring. But the history of education will show that spirituality is no worse than secularism in its propensity to sow bad seed." (pg. 114)

"Access to the mysterium tremendum is not a staple of my daily experience, so I cannot depend on a steady stream of muminosity to renew my teaching." (pg. 114)

"It is possible to respond differently to surprises, to allow one new idea to generate yet another in us - a process sometimes called thinking." (pg. 115)

"One of the most vital needs our students have: to be introduced to a world larger than their own experiences and egos, a world that expands their personal boundaries and enlarges their sense of community." (pg. 122)

"Though we persist in believing that competition is the best way to motivate people to learn, students are far more motivated by the fact that their individual learning enables them to contribute to the communal inquiry - or at least not embarrass themselves by letting the group down." (pg. 131)

"It is said that all of us together are smarter than any one of us alone." (pg. 131)

"Like most professionals, I was taught to occupy space, not open it: after all, we are the ones who know, so we have an obligation to tell others about it! Even though I have rejected this nonsensical norm, I still feel guilty when I defy it. A not-so-small voice within me insists that if I am not filling all the available space with my own knowledge, I am not earning my keep." (pg. 135)

"Our resistance to opening rather than filling the space is compounded by the fact that if we decide to change the way we practice our craft, it takes time to make the transition - and while we are in transit, we are not very good at what we are doing. En route to a new pedagogy, there will be days when we serve our students poorly, days when our guilt only deepens." (pg. 135)

"My students will learn much more when I turn their eyes from always looking at me and help them look at one another." (pg. 137)

"I feel that challenge most urgently when a student says something utterly untrue - and everything in me wants to rise up and smite this falsehood with the Sword of Truth...How quickly do I need to do the smiting? Can it wait?" (pg. 137)

"Drama does not mean histrionics." (pg. 140)

"The real threat to community in the classroom is not power and status differences between teachers and students but the lack of interdependence that those differences encourage. Students are dependent on teachers for grades - but what are teachers dependent on students for? If we cannot answer that question with something as real to us as grades are to students, community will not happen." (pg. 142)

"When we can say 'please' because we need our students and 'thank you' because we are genuinely grateful for them, obstacles to community will begin to fall away." (pg. 144)

"There are no formulas for good teaching, and the advice of experts has but marginal utility. If we want to grow in our practice, we have two primary places to go: to the inner ground from which good teaching comes and to the community of fellow teachers from whom we can learn more about ourselves and our craft." (pg. 146)

Though we teach in front of students, we almost always teach solo, out of collegial sight - as contrasted with surgeons and trial lawyers...Surgeons operate under the gaze of specialists who notice if a hand trembles, making malpractice less likely. But teachers can lose sponges or amputate the wrong limb with no witnesses except the victims." (pg. 146)

Consider how "academic freedom" often looks like this: "My classroom is my castle, and the sovereigns of other fiefdoms are not welcome here." (pg. 147)

"There is only one honest way to evaluate the many varieties of good teaching with the subtlety required: it's called being there." (pg. 148)

"I am especially touched when young teachers, who believe their struggles are unique, find relief in the revelation that older faculty still struggle with problems of their own." (pg. 151)

"Though teaching sometimes feels like a linear flow of experience from one session to the next, it is actually an intricate patterning of life...a kind of creative chaos we can learn to enjoy." (pg. 151)

"I sometimes ask people to fill in the blank: 'When I am teaching at my best, I am like a __________.'" (pg. 152)

"When people are willing to feel a bit foolish among colleagues, the payoff in self-understanding can be considerable." (pg. 152)

"Quick fixes make the person who shared the problem feel unheard and dismissed...We must remember a simple truth: the human soul does not want to be fixed, it wants simply to be seen and heard." (pg. 156)

"We humans have a curious conceit that just because we have said something, we understand it." (pg. 160)

"[Leadership:] involves offering people excuses and permissions to do the things that they want to do but cannot initiate themselves." (pg. 161)

"Only in the face of...opposition has significant social change been achieved." (pg. 170)

"I begin to see here a "movement mentality," in which resistance is received as the place where everything begins, not ends...Not only does change happen in spite of institutional resistance, but resistance helps change happen." (pg. 171)

"We inhabit institutional settings, including school and work and civic society, because they harbor opportunities we value. But the claims those institutions make on us are sometimes at odds with our hearts...That tension can be creative up to a point. It becomes pathological when the heart becomes a wholly owned subsidiary of the organization." (pg. 174)

"Had Rosa Parks sat there calculating the odds of making history, she might well have moved to the back of the bus." (pg. 175-176)

"In deciding to live divided no more, the individual goes beyond criticizing an institution and becomes self-critical as well." (pg. 176)

"People involved in movements often have more friends far away than they have at home; the reform agenda that is so inspiring on a national scale turns out to be threatening locally." (pg. 181)

"Visibility is not easy because it may bring recrimination. But when we declare our values in a visible and viable way, we will sometimes be amazed at the way allies gather round." (pg. 181)

"There is so much 'soul force' in making the decision to live an undivided life, and so much reinforcement when people who have made it come together, that the shadow of self-righteousness is almost certain to emerge. The only way to minimize the shadow and maximize the light is to expose the movement to public critique - and to take that critique seriously." (pg. 182)

"The outcomes of most movements are modest. They rarely resemble nirvana, Most movements do not overturn the prevailing order but make incremental adjustments to it." (pg. 187)

"Integrity, as the cynics say, does not put bread on the table." (pg. 189)

"It has occurred to me from time to time that No Child Left Behind is a scheme to create such massive failure in public education that privatization would become an appealing option to more Americans." (pg. 194)

"The mission of the profession must never be confused with the institutional structures in which it is pursued. The fact that we have schools does not mean we have education." (pg. 204)

"The institutions are neither external to us nor constraining, neither separate from us nor alien. In fact, institutions are us! The shadows that institutions cast over our ethical lives are external manifestations of our own inner shadows." (pg. 206)

"We do not live by science alone. To survive and thrive, we also rely on the knowledge embedded in our feelings. In fact, science itself begins in the hunches, intuitions, and bodily knowledge that lie behind testable hypotheses." (pg. 208)

"Whatever our data source is, the key question is always the same: How much of what I claim to know can be verified from viewpoints other than my own, and how much of it is my projection?" (pg. 210)

"Therapy done by amateurs is usually an especially ugly form of psychological violence." (pg. 210)

"Our students need to see how we, their elders, deal with these vagaries of fate while refusing to sell out either our professions or our own identity and integrity. And they need to see how, when we fail and fall down, as everyone does, we manage to get up again." (pg. 211)

"Opening one's mouth to challenge what is wrong is a way to stay sane." (pg. 212) (less)

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Claudia

Apr 11, 2008Claudia rated it it was amazing

Shelves: professional-reading, 2013-book-challenge-150, can-t-live-without-em

I got to meet Parker Palmer at a conference. He wasn't a very dynamic keynote speaker, but what an inspiration. I reread this book when I'm feeling overwhelmed by my job. This one sustains me.

So -- I just reread it for a project...some things feel dated to me, and impossibly idealistic, but then that is exactly what I love about Palmer and his book. He reminds me WHY I teach (taught) -- to be an authentic human. I am authentic when I am with students. I am real.

I was intrigued by his challenge t ...more

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Carmen Imes

Nov 28, 2021Carmen Imes rated it it was amazing

Such a helpful companion for teachers of every age student in every field!

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Marcy

Jul 06, 2010Marcy rated it liked it

I agree with a lot of what Parker Palmer has written in this book. Teaching is not a magic wand; One can't just quickly conjure up a lesson without thinking of oneself, the subject, and the students' needs in the class. The book was extremely difficult for me to read. "We must find an approach to teaching that respects the diversity of teachers and subjects, which methodological reductionism fails to do." I had to reread and reread to figure out Palmer's meaning. Much of the book was written with too much fancy rhetoric. The long and short of his message is, " Teachers should have a passion for a subject that they deeply care about. That passion is what that teacher is all about, who he/she is. A teacher has to remain true to this passion while learning the techniques that respect the subject, the teacher, and the students. Teachers should encourage students to voice their opinions and speak for themselves. Mutual inquiry between the teacher and the student is the best teaching community.

Another important community is the community of teachers, looking at their own classroom practices with new lenses. It is in this community where teachers can explore their strengths and weaknesses with ease, knowing that what is said will remain in confidence. When teachers meet to together, their dialogue is valued and their ideas are stretched and tested. "It is our commitment to the conversation itself, our willingness to put forward our observations and interpretations for testing by the community and to return the favor to others. To be in the truth, we must know how to observe and reflect and speak and listen, with passion and with discipline, in the circle gathered around a given subject."

I loved this Hasidic tale: "We need a coat with two pockets. In one pocket there is dust, and in the other pocket there is gold. We need a coat with two pockets to remind us who we are." A community of learners will help us find our true selves, and help us discover ways we need to grow "ourselves and our craft."

Palmer talks about teachers asking good questions. I have been exploring for a long time what good inquiry looks like. I wish that Palmer would have written more about the practice of asking questions that "open an inner space to receive another person- a space that closes down when we are worrying about how to fix someone or preparing the next comment we want to make."

It's obvious that Parker J. Palmer is brilliant. I understood and agreed with his ideas, but got lost in the rhetoric. I am hoping that his "guide" to teaching with courage is more clear and that I can use some of his thoughts to practice with a group of my own 2nd, 3rd year teachers. (less)

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Charlie

Jul 14, 2010Charlie rated it really liked it

What I look for when reading a book about teaching is twofold; that it gives me ideas that I want to apply to my classroom, and it confirms the direction I have chosen in my life as teacher. The Courage to Teach supplied both.

Palmer clarified why we teach and linked that to why we learn. A good read for anyone who is a teacher or is thinking about becoming a teacher.

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Britt

Dec 16, 2008Britt rated it really liked it

Shelves: nonfiction, self-help, academics, teaching

Palmer is a little bit gushy about the great ineffable glory and torment of being a teacher, and I found myself skimming vast swaths of the book. However, I did find several important points to that I am trying to integrate into my thinking about teaching.

One is a frank acknowledgment that teaching is scary, that we can be so desperate to be liked by our students and to get them to learn that we can lose track of our own identities. We should not become over-invested in technique. Not every technique is right for every teacher. This flies in the face of evidence-based teaching in physics—but while pre- and post-testing with large groups can prove certain techniques that should be successful for most teachers, this ignores the unique things that we can do that work well for me and my students that may or may not work for anyone else. As teachers, we can embrace the techniques that reinforce our integrity, and not be worried about the rest.

Another important idea that I took away from the book is the "subject-centered" classroom, in contrast to the teacher-centered or student-centered classroom. I really like the idea of all of us approaching the subject together, with the instructor, not a source of knowledge or an ultimate authority, nor a sometimes distant "guide on the side", but an active participant who serves to model our approach to knowledge in our field.

This book is widely recommended amongst academics who care about teaching, and I will probably recommend it to others, though I personally am more practical-minded and probably got a lot more out of Advice for New Faculty Members by Robert Boice.

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Alex Johnson

Aug 18, 2019Alex Johnson rated it it was amazing  ·  review of another edition

Shelves: to-reread

This book works on you rather than telling you what to do. Definitely not a book to tell you all the answers but a book to remind you why teach and how that can be done wholistically for teachers and their students. I'll have to revisit this one in a few years. (less)

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John Martindale

Jul 05, 2013John Martindale rated it it was amazing

Shelves: audiobook, psychology, hope-to-re-read, education, philosophy

I thought this an excellent book. Palmer mentioned how he wrote and rewrote the manuscript again and again, and it shows in a good way--it was very well written. I loved the thoughtful way he worded things and the poetic nature of some of his pros.

Palmer emphasized the importance of the inner life of teacher, and how this is just as (and maybe even more) important than technique. Among Palmer's students who shared about their favorite teachers; there were those interactive types who encouraged discussion, and yet also educators who only lectured with no room for questions. Unsurprisingly, students delighted in the fun loving educator, yet the very serious teachers also were among the students favorites. What was consistently true of those teachers they loved, was that the teacher was truly "there" and was enthusiastic about the subject matter. The point taken is that the teaching style is not the most important factor, rather it's the teachers love for the topic of study. Students will sense whether or not the teach enjoys the subject and sincerely desires to help the students discover, learn and love it as well.

I liked that Palmer shared about the failures, his insecurities and the many things he learned during his years as an educator. He had some excellent thoughts on teaching from our identity. He has a chapter about about the influence fear has upon the teacher and the student and how they need to be brought to light and dealt with. He has a chapter on paradox that would have made G.K Chesterton proud. I really did relate with a lot in the first section of his book. Its definitely a book I want to return to and remember.

I really liked his reflections on knowledge, which seem to me very in line with William James understanding of truth. Palmer wrote:

"As far as I can tell, the only "Objective" knowledge we possess is the knowledge that comes from a community of people looking at a subject and debating their observations within a consensual framework of procedural rules. I know of no field, from science to religion, where what we regard as objective knowledge did not emerge from long and complex communal discourse that continues to this day, no field where the facts of the matter were delivered fully formed from on high.

The firmest foundation of all our knowledge is the community of truth itself. This community can never offer us ultimate certainty--not because its process is flawed but because certainty is beyond the grasp of finite hearts and minds. Yet this community can do much to rescue us from ignorance, bias, and self-deception if we are willing to submit our assumptions, our observations, our theories--indeed, ourselves--to its scrutiny.

In rejecting the objectivist model, I have not embraced a relativism that reduces truth to whatever the community decides, for the community of truth includes a transcendent dimension of truth-knowing and truth-telling that takes us beyond relativism and absolutism alike. The clearest and most compelling naming of that dimension is found in a couplet by Robert Frost: "We dance round in a ring and suppose, but the Secret sits in the middle and knows."

Frost honors the transcendent secret of the subject at the center of the community of truth, a secret that is equally obscured by absolutism, which claims that we can know the full reality of things, and by relativism, which claims that things have no reality save what we know. The subject knows itself better than we can ever know it, and forever evades our grasp by keeping its own secrets.

If this were no the case, the process of knowing world have long ago come to a halt. Why did we not settle for the pre-Socratic view of the nature of the physical world or the medieval view or the view of early modern science? Why are we pressing, even now, on the view we hold today? Because at the center of our attention is a subject that continually calls us deeper into its secret, a subject that refuses to be reduced to our conclusions about it."

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Tarn Wilson

Jul 15, 2018Tarn Wilson rated it it was amazing

I read this book years ago, and not until re-reading it did I realize how profoundly it shaped my teaching philosophy. Rich. Meaningful. Inspiring. Challenging. I think I should re-read every couple of years.

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di

Apr 02, 2011di rated it it was amazing

Shelves: non-fiction-informative, education

Palmer writes eloquently & honestly about the challenges of teaching, especially why the current debate will not lead to any meaningful change. While some readers may dislike the reflection & introspection that makes up this book (Palmer disdains "technique talk" or "quick fixes"), this book really helped me sort out my anxiety & baggage from my own imperfect & difficult seven years in the classroom. It helped me see where I "lost heart," & better, how I can gain it back again. It helped me see myself as a teacher in an entirely new & powerful way!!! This was my kind of book--kind of like an "Artist's Way" for educators. I kept a notebook of notes, exercises, & reflections as I studied this book. I intend to go back & review them as I make my way through my first year back into the classroom. (less)

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Heather

Jul 01, 2014Heather rated it really liked it

Occasionally Parker J. Palmer can be wordy, and his concepts delivered in a cumbersome prose. Most often, though, his crystalline insights on teaching from a whole heart describe both the research and practice of sound pedagogy. Two concepts are particularly salient and lifegiving: education that does no violence to the teacher or the learner, and teaching from authenticity and integrity rather than fraudulence and fear. His storytelling and Quaker variety of discernment make it an engaging read or listen. (less)

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Amy

May 05, 2018Amy rated it it was amazing

“We became teachers because we once believed that ideas and insight are at least as powerful as the world that surrounds us,” Parker Palmer writes in the early chapters of The Courage to Teach. We teach because we are called to “creativity on the service of the young.” We teach because this vocation, as Frederick Buechner described the word, is “the place where (our) deep gladness and the world’s hunger meet.” We teach because it is through generative connectedness with our students that we get to experience “the grace of great things.” I could go on and on. This book has given me a wealth of language for exploring my teaching identity and my relationships with students and colleagues. I will probably read this book every April and May for years to come, and it deserves a place on every teacher and administrator’s shelf. (less)

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Ben

Mar 27, 2010Ben rated it really liked it

AGREE / DISAGREE

The whole idea of learning in community is new to me, but something I’ve been introduced to before reading this book. Our church, Life on the Vine, is a very community oriented church that has opened my eyes to that idea. I was, therefore, open to the ideas of the 2nd part of Palmer’s book which focused on learning in community. Our American culture places so much value on individualism that we limit ourselves incredibly.

I also found myself in agreement with the ideas he presented in the first part of the book, in that teaching is first about who we are as people. I don’t think this is limited to the realm of teaching, and I think Palmer would agree.

QUESTION

Although I was stimulated by this book in many ways, and I do agree in large part, I have some lingering questions. He pushes his “subject” theory so far that it nearly places the teacher and learner on the same plane. I do agree that students have a lot to offer to the learning process, much more than traditional education models allow for. Yet, there must be a place where the teacher is viewed with some level of expertise that is far above the students. Otherwise, any of the students are just as valid to teach any given class. The whole point of education, no matter what the model or focus is to help other people grow in knowledge and experience in subjects in which they are currently deficient.

Palmer was careful to distinguish his model from the learner based approach, but I feel that he didn’t draw a clear enough line. It may be that I misunderstood the exact place of his conviction, but it just seemed a bit too post-modern and student focused to me. That said, I am more in his camp than I am in the traditional object based approach.

WORTHY OF MORE THOUGHT

The whole book and his approach to teaching is honestly worthy of more thought. I was heading his direction before reading this book, and feel affirmed by it. As I consider the possibility of teaching in the future, I definitely want to incorporate some of the principles here. Although I agree with his subject based theory, I’m thinking over the extremes to which he goes with it.

GENERAL COMMENTS

Palmer did a decent job balancing the abstract and the concrete. There were many times I found myself barely hanging on to the abstract and saying to myself, “Ok, that sounds good, but what do you mean? Or, “What does that look like exactly?” Then, he would go on and answer my question, so kudos to Palmer! Otherwise, I would have found the book frustrating. (less)

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Mark

Aug 14, 2010Mark rated it it was amazing  ·  review of another edition

Shelves: changed-me, education

This book resonated in my heart more than nearly any book I have ever read, but with a caveat. While the themes Palmer discussed resonated with my heart, I didn't always find the specific example or the writing to be on par with the "truths" explored. The key truths for me were: Teach out of identity and core not technique. Fear and alienation are the enemies of effective teaching. Greater truths are often paradoxes. Trying to resolve paradoxes too quickly short-circuits learning. The tension from paradoxes can leave us open provide we have fuel to endure the tension which requires love and suffering. Finding truth as a community centered around a subject rather than "objective facts" and experts. Teaching from the microcosm. From an impact in my life this is a five start. From a completeness of the topic / writing quality, this is a three star. (less)

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Carrie G

Jun 12, 2014Carrie G rated it it was ok  ·  review of another edition

I finished the last page of this book and said, "Thank God! I've finished!" And that accomplishment came only from sheer determination and force of will. What a disappointment! I started this book mid-January when I was starting to get the mid-year, I-just-can't-do-this-anymore blues. "The Courage to Teach" - it sounded uplifting, encouraging, renewing... just what I needed at the school year's half-way point. Instead, what I got was a bunch of philosophical ramblings. Ok... that's a little harsh. But what I needed from this book... no, what I expected from this book, was a massive anabolic steroid shot of "Teaching Enthusiasm" and instead I got a half-dose of children's strength "Explore Your Heart and Mind." Maybe if I had gone into the book with different needs and expectations I would have enjoyed it more. But for me, this book just fell flat. (less)

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Naeem

Apr 09, 2019Naeem rated it it was ok

At last year’s ISA, Andy Paras and Patrick Jackson had us read Parker Palmer’s earlier work To Know as We are Known (1993), which I liked a bit better than The Courage to Teach (1998). Both books annoyed me even as I found them appealing. Courage, more than To Know has a preachy sales-pitch undertone that had me wishing for more story-telling and less expounding of principles. Still, every ten pages, I found myself noting something I wanted to keep as a memento or a reminder. For example, I like very much Palmer’s emphasis on wholeness (4) and on what certain types of Marxists and Hegelians might call “expressive holism” (122). I second his call that we recognize teachers’ vulnerabilities (17) and I agree that academics hurt themselves when we distrust what he calls “personal truths.” I enjoy his criticism that we are, in fact, “blaming the victims” (41) when we complain about our students. He affirms my experience that nearly all pedagogic conversation devolves into “technique talk” (145). I confirm his claims that the power of the “sacred” is in play in the classroom (111) and that truth is not attained via democratic processes (92). His diagnosis that our need to be liked is a crucial problem (49) is central to my own vision of reforming teaching. And, I love his language when he asks how long we should wait before we “smite” students for uttering statements that are totally false or utterly offensive (134). (The subtext here – in those rare moments when Palmer provides the relief of a subtext – is that we should wait a very long time, perhaps forever, before smiting students with our power, knowledge, and skill.)

I love, most of all, two passages that produce vital questions. One because the form of the question solves my problem about what to do with student praise. Usually, I say, “But I didn’t do anything. You did all the work.” Here is what I will say in the future (21): “what is about you, that allowed…[my] mentoring to happen?” The second is a very Hegelian/Lacanian question that teachers almost never ask (139): What need do students fill in teachers?

Nevertheless, the book also hides elements that need exposure. If we think of the medium as painting, then Parker paints in bright colors, perhaps in pastels, and his strokes are impressionistic. Too much so. Missing are the darker hues and those quiet waves of understanding that come only when we are drowned in a sense of resignation. In sum, I need less Gustav Klimt and more Mark Rothko.

The short list of my complaints follows: Parker’s two books are too internalized for me (20); they are absent both the macro-structures of political economy and the microstructures of (Freudian) psychology. As a result, he does not have a strong enough response to the charge that when we practice his methods, we are “doing therapy” (64). A better response might be that what we do is both different from and better than therapy since we connect dynamic micro-structures to dynamic macro-structures, instead of severing them from each other – a severing that is integral to therapy and therefore to therapy’s ultimate failure.

My third problem with Parker’s work is that while he provides a key insight about the role of organizations, namely that they “represent the principle of order and conservation…[and]… they are the vessels in which society holds hard won treasures from the past” (164), he misses that they also contain an active denial of genocide, slavery, sexism, and war-crimes – what Adorno calls “barbarism.” In sum, I might say that while Parker briefly addresses “pessimism,” he does not consider the difference between pessimism and resignation and therefore is unaware of the tremendous energy released from submitting to resignation.

This absence of gravitas leads Parker to produce the condition he fears, namely, that he is peddling “false hope about the renewal of teaching and learning” (164).

Where can we find a better analysis?

***

I turn to Theodor Adorno’s remarkable 10-page lecture, “Taboos of the Teaching Vocation.” (But I could also have turned to Thomas Rickert’s Acts of Enjoyment (2007) or to Marshall Alcorn’s Changing the Subject in English Class (2002), and his Resistance to Learning (2013). Or, I might have considered these two remarkable films about pedagogy: Whiplash (2013) and Waterland (1987)).

Adorno asks why and how society devalues teachers. University professors, he suggests, receive more respect than their colleagues in schools, but they too are painted with this same degrading brush. Adorno responds to his question by speculating on society’s, specifically, German society’s “‘unconscious’ or ‘pre-conscious’ aversion to the teaching profession” (178). He looks for taboos which he defines as “a collective manifestation of ideas...that have lost their real basis… and that nonetheless tenaciously persist as psychological and social prejudices and in turn influence reality, become real forces.” 178

Adorno then begins a series of speculations with what he admits is little evidence. He hopes that his presentation can produce hypotheses that lead to a research agenda.

Historically, German society, he says, connects teachers with servants, monks, and scribes. Each of these derive ultimately from the role of slaves (180). He notes, further, that, since even today society is unified only by means of force, it is force and not ideas that carry the day (183). All of us, he insists, harbor the disdain that warriors carry for those who traffic in ideas and in conversations instead of strength (180). He asserts that all of us but especially children strongly identify with the soldier (180).

Society’s contempt for teachers is due not merely to the bias that favors force, warriors, and soldiers. It is also that the pedagogue is a kind of non-expert; teachers, at least non-university teachers, usually have no specialization and therefore they are amateurs in all fields. They do not have their own subject-matter (181).

Further, teachers’ power is over children – a lowly power. Whereas judges and even administrators can lord it over adults, teachers’ command over children actually infantilizes teachers (181). We might say that teachers are a child/adult hybrid entity who never attain the full status of adulthood (184).

Teachers are also “unfair” and “not a good sport[s]” (182) because they necessarily have greater knowledge than the student which they use to establish their authority and power. This rift is constitutive of the teacher-student relationship:

Such unfairness—and every teacher, even the university teacher senses this—somewhat taints the advantage of the teacher’s knowledge over that of his pupils, an advantage the teacher asserts without having the right, because indeed the advantage is indivisible from his function, whereas he continually bestows upon that advantage an authority he can disregard only with great difficulty. (182)

Adorno summarizes: “Unfairness lies… in the ontology of the teacher…” (182).

The difference between Parker Palmer and Theodor Adorno is that the latter thinks of society as essentially riven and then (falsely?) constituted as a unity via force. Thus, three elements define society: (1) essential divisions – whether on the axis of culture, politics, or economics, (2) power used to contain and suture division, and, most important, (3) the denial of the division, the use of force, and the suturing. Adorno describes it like this: “… it is essential for the inner structure of this complex that the physical violence any society based on domination requires must at all costs not be acknowledged, insofar as the society takes itself to be bourgeois-liberal” (183, emphasis added).

Adorno derives two further claims from this statement: that force must not be acknowledge as the Real (to use Lacanian language) of the classroom, and that the teacher is the entity who sustains the fiction that force is unnecessary -- both in the classroom and in society. Society forces the teacher to personify force in the classroom while also requiring the teacher to deny the centrality of that force.

Adorno concludes that society can “achieve the so-called integration….only with the potential of physical violence” 183.

As such, the unconscious imagery of the teacher is as a “flogger” (182), a “jailer,” and a “drill sergeant” (183). (The film “Whiplash” (2013), for example, certainly portrays the music teacher, “Fletcher” as a superior officer trying to break the will of his students.) Adorno writes,

I consider this complex, even after the abolition of corporal punishment, to be decisive for the taboos on the teacher’s vocation. This imago presents the teacher as the physically stronger who beats the weaker…. [t]his function [is] still ascribed to him even after the official function was abolished…182

Undoing this image, for Adorno, requires going beyond the abolition of corporeal punishment. What is further necessary is the disappearance of the “last memory trace of corporal punishment” in schools (183).

If the historical traces and the macro sociological context weren’t enough, Adorno turns to problems of psychology. Children learn that “parents do not live up to the ego ideal they instill in their children” (186). Children then encounter the teacher as a second opportunity with which to identify their ego ideal. But here too they are let down because teachers are themselves children that produced unsatisfying projections on to their own parents and their own teachers. Alienated societies cannot but produce both alienated students and alienated teachers (186).

This “complex” of problems which Adorno also calls an “archaism” is, of course, internalized by teachers and it expresses itself as “bickering, grousing, scolding, and the like and in reactions that are always close to physical violence and betray a certain weakness and lack of self-confidence” (187). Adorno, therefore endorses psychoanalytic training for teachers.

He closes the article by asking the question of “What is to be done?” Of course, the cure is already in his diagnosis: the most important element is to create “enlightenment about the entire complex” (188). This means producing a frank, honest, and clear-eyed assessment of the magnitude of the problem. In case we think that such a fix might be quick, Adorno warns that, “one should not expect too much from intellectual engagement alone” and that we should “target the ideology of schooling” (188).

He ends on what I experience as his most powerful insight, that teaching and reforms to teaching work within the process of “debarbarization”: “By barbarism I do not mean the Beatles, although their cult is related to it, but the utmost extreme: delusional prejudice, oppression, genocide, and torture…”(190).

Delusion, oppression, genocide, and torture. These are what society, schooling, and teaching support. To substantiate this claim, Adorno brings the full weight of his historical reflection:

My generation experienced the relapse of humanity into barbarism, in the literal, indescribable, and true sense. Barbarism is a condition where all the formative, cultivating influence, for which the school is responsible, is shown to have failed. It is certain that as long as society itself engenders barbarism, the school can offer only minimal resistance to it. But if barbarism, the horrible shadow over our existence, is in fact the contrary to culture, then it is also essential that individuals become debarbarized (190, emphasis mine).

Schooling, indeed the Enlightenment itself, has already failed. We are trying again. It is already “after the end of the world” -- as the poet/Jazz musician Sun Ra would say. Our first step then is to understand how schooling, society, and “civilization” align with barbarism.

Parker Palmer delivers no such indictment in his two books. While his work is enjoyable and insightful it falls considerably short of plumbing the necessary depths required in a diagnosis of our troubles. (less)

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Brittany

Jun 15, 2021Brittany rated it it was amazing

Shelves: teaching, books-to-buy

A fascinating book about the relational and transformational nature of teaching. This book open my eyes to a whole new way of thinking about teaching and learning. Slightly dated, but the basics are there for sure. I would be curious to see an updated version incorporating new research and cultural insights.

schools with the highest standardized test scores also showed a high level of trust in the school.

a strong correlation between relational trust and student achievement remains even after controlling for factors such as racial and economic disparities...on what does relational trust depend? it depends on an educators capacity to explore the inner landscape of his/her own life, learning how to negotiate that tricky terrain in a way that keeps trust alive.

I project the condition of my soul onto my students, my subject, and our way of being together. The entanglements I experience in the classroom are often no more or less than the convolutions of my innerlife...teaching holds a mirror to the soul. If I have the courage to look into that mirror and analyze what I see, I have the capacity for self knowledge.

When I do not know myself, I cannot know my subject-not at the deepest level of embodied personal meaning. I will know it only abstractly, from a distance, a conjury of concepts as far removed from the world as I am from personal truth.

The question we most commonly ask is the what question-what subjects shall we teach?...when the question goes a bit deeper we ask the how question-how will we teach it-occasionally, we ask the why question-for what purpose & to what end. Seldom do we ask the who question? Who is the self that teaches? How does the quality of my selfhood form or deform the way I relate to my students, my subject, my colleagues, my world?

Reduce teaching to intellect and it becomes a cold abstraction. Reduce it to emotions and it becomes narcacistic. Reduce it to the spiritual and it loses it anchor to the world. Intellect, emotion, and spirit, depend on one another for wholeness. they are interwoven in the human self and in education at it's best.

In the training of therapists, the technique is what you use until the therapist arrives. good methods can help a therapist find a way into the client's dilemma. But good therapy does not begin until the real live therapist joins with the real life of the client. the same goes for teaching.

Chapter 1:

Every class comes down to this: my students and I, face to face, engaging in an ancient and exacting exchange called education. The techniques I have mastered do not disappear, but neither do they suffice.

In every story...good teachers share one trait: a strong sense of personal identity infuses their work.

There are subtle dimensions of the complex, demanding, and life long pursuit of self-discovery. Identity lies in the intersection of the diverse forces that make up my life. Integrity lies in relating to those forces in ways that bring me wholeness and life, rather than fragmentation and death.

In the undivided self, every major thread of one's life experience is honored, creating a weave of such coherence and strength that it can hold students and subject as well as self. Such a self, inwardly integrated, is able to make the outward connection on which teaching depends.

What I care about helps define my selfhood...teaching is always done at the dangerous interaction of personal and public life.

We make ourselves as well as our subjects vulnerable to indifference, judgement, ridicule. to reduce our vulnerability we disconnect from students, from subjects, and even from ourselves. we build a wall between inner truth and outer performance.

The key to my mentors power was the connection between his method and himself...as we learn more about who we are, we can learn techniques that reveal rather than conceal the personhood from which good teaching comes. We no longer need to use technique to mask the subjective self...we can use technique to manifest the best self that comes from teaching.

How did we come to be where the main goal of academia turned out to be about performance instead of who we are as teachers?

an image of vocation: the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet...if a work is mine to do, it will make me glad over the long-haul, despite the difficult days. Even the difficult days will ultimately gladden me, because they pose the kinds of problems that help me grow in a work if it is truly mine...if a work does not truly gladden me in these ways, I need to consider laying it down.

what brings more security in the long run? holding this job or honoring my soul? The teacher in our soul is a voice of integrity and identity...it speaks of what is real for us.

In classical understanding, education is the attempt to weed out from within the self a core of wisdom that has the power to resist falsehood and live in the light of truth. not by external norms but my reasoned and reflective self-determination

How does one attend to the voice of the teacher within? solitude, silence, meditative reading, walking in the woods, keeping a journal, finding a friend who will listen...we need to learn as many ways as we can of talking to ourselves.

Ch2

The self is not a scrap of turf to be defended, but a capacity to be enlarged. if we embrace the promise of diversity, of creative conflict, and of losing in order to win, we still face one final fear: the fear that a live encounter with otherness will challenge or even compel us to live our lives...otherness, taken seriously, always invites transformation, calling us to new facts and theory and values but also to new ways of living our lives. and this is the most daunting of all.

the fear that shuts down the capacity for connectedness is often at work in our students..if we could learn to address our student's fears, rather than exploit them, we would move toward better teaching.

the way we diagnose our students condition will determine the kind of remedy we offer.

a good teacher is one who can listen to those voices, even before they are spoken. so that some day, they can speak with truth and confidence. what does this mean? it means making space for the other. Being aware of the other. paying attention to the other. honoring the other. it means not rushing to fill out student's silences

generativity becomes creativity in the service of the young. a way in which the elders serve not only the young but their own wellbeing. teachers must turn towards student, not away from them..."not matter how wide a perilous the gaps between us might be, I am committed to bridging them. Not only because you need me to help you on your way, but because I need your insight and energy to help me renew my own life"

the fear I want to get rid of is rooted in my need to be popular among young people...one that keeps us from serving our students well...I hope to never get rid of the fear that I feel when I am not in life-giving communion with the young. I hope never to encounter a student sitting in the backrow of the class and act weather he or she never exists....when the student from hell does not seem relevant to me, my life becomes less relevant to the world.

the teacher's hospitality to the student, results in a world more hospitable to the teacher.

when we distance ourselves from something, it becomes an object. When it becomes an object, it no longer has life. when it is lifeless, it cannot touch or transform us, so our knowledge of the thing remains pure.

the highest form of love: love that allows for intimacy, without the animation of difference...this describes the heart of every authentic relationship that a human being might have...a way of knowing and living that has moved beyond fear of the other into respect for, even a need for, its otherness

ch 3

how can we escape the grip of either/or thinking?...to develop a habit of mind that supports a habit of connectedness in our teaching. The opposite of a profound truth can be another profound truth.

Profound truth-where, if we want to know what is essential, we must stop thinking the world into pieces and start thinking it together again. Profound truth, rather than empirical fact, is the stuff of which paradoxes are made...My inward and invisible sense of identity only becomes known to me only as it manifests itself in encounters with external and invisible otherness.

To take a hard experience and leap immediately to practical solutions is to evade the insight into ones identity that is always available in moments of vulnerability. Inishgt that comes only as we are willing to dwell more deeply into the dynamics that made us more vulnerable. Eventually the how to question is worth asking, but understanding my own identity is the first and crucial step to understanding how I teach.

I will not make any difference to anyone if the technique I am using is not rooted in my nature....every gift goes hand in hand with a liability...a strength is also a weakness...a dimension of my identity serves myself and others at some points, but not all the time.

To embrace the profoundly opposite truths that my sense of self is dependent on others dancing with me, and that I still have a self when no one wants to dance....this is a true paradox. my sense of self is so deeply dependent on others, what I will always suffer a bit when others refuse to relate to me...at the same time. I still have the sense of self when others fail. I need to learn that the pain I sometimes experience in teaching is as much a sign as the joy I feel when the dance is in full swing.

the space should be bounded and open.

the space should be hospitable and charged

the space should invite the voice of the individual and of the group

the space should honor the little stories of the students and the bit stories of the discipline and the tradition

the space should support solitude and surround it with the resources of a community

the space should welcome both silence and speech

suppose students are not wasting time, bu doing a more reflective form of learning. I miss all such forms of learning when I assume the silence signifies a problem, reacting to it from my own need for control, rather than their need to learn.

helping students become free requires us to restrict their freedom in certain situations....neither our students or our children share this knowledge...there is no formula to tell us if moments of conflict are times for freedom or for discipline but good teachers and good parents find their way through such minefields everyday by allowing such moments of tension to pull them open to a larger and larger love. a love that resolves these dilemmas that looks past the self-interest of ourselves and looking towards the best interest of the student or child.

when we pretend, we fall out of the common center that is both the root and fruit of teaching at it's best. when we understand that the point is to live everything, we recover all that is lost.

ch4

community is an outward sign of an inward and invisible grace. the flowing of personal identity and integrity into the world of relationships.

to teach is to create a space in which a community of truth is practiced.

the community we seek is one that can embrace, guide, and define the mission of teaching. the mission of knowing, teaching, and learning. to teach is to create a space in which the community of truth is practiced

we experience humility not because we have fought and loss, but because humility is the only lens through wich great things can be seen. and once we have seen them, humility is the only posture possible. We become free men and women through education because tyranny in any form can be overcome by invoking the grace of great things.

Ch 5

to see a world in a grain of sand, and heaven in a wild flower, hold infinity in the palm of your hand, and eternity in an hour-william blake

in religious life-when a community attaches ultimacy to its ordained leadership or to the mass mind of its members, it will fall into idolatry until it turns to a transcendent center that can judge both partitioners and priests.

passion for the subject, propels that subject, not the teacher to the center of the learning circle. and when a great thing is in their midst, students have direct access to learning and of life.

why do we keep trying ot cover the field...each discipline has an inner logic that is so profound that every critical piece of it contains the information necessary to intersect the whole, if it is illuminated by a laser, a highly organized beam of light. that lazer is the act of teaching.

in every great novel, that when deeply understood reveals how the author understands character, establishes tension, creates dramatic movement. with that understanding, the student can read the rest of the novel more insightly.

patterning is what happens when students learn their medical facts when they learn it through a patient's story.

our resistance to opening rather than filling the space is compounded by the fact that it takes time t make the transition to changing our craft...on route to a new pedagogy there are days we will serve poorly

ch 6

clearness committee

if we want to support each others inner lives, we must remember a simple truth. the human soul does not want to be fixed. it wants simply to be seen and heard. if we want to see and hear a person's soul. we must remember the soul is like a wild animal. tough, resilient, and yet shy.

allowing the person to hear more clearly the guidance that comes form within. as we let the process unfold we are reminded of a certain truth: because we cannot get in the mind and soul of another person, we cannot know the answer to another's problem...we cannot know exactly what the problem is.

community does not emerge spontaneously from some relational reflex...if we are to have communities of discourse about teaching and learning teaching communities that are intentional about the topics to be pursued and processed...we need leaders to call us to that vision....conversation must be a free choices. but in the privatized academy, the conversation begins only as leaders invite us out of isolation into generative ways of using our freedom.

the notion of the new professional revives the anciet meaning of the word. the new professional is a person who can say, in the midst of the powerful forcefield of institutional life whereas so much might compromise my core values, I have found firm ground on which to stand. the ground on my identity and my integrity, of my own soul.

Ccu recommendation on what makes good teachers (less)

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Brandon

Jul 01, 2022Brandon rated it liked it

Parker Palmer is an author of the inner life, and his exploration of that world with regards to education is well-done. The Courage to Teach is beautiful in an intellectual way. However, having enjoyed it, I find the genuine wisdom within abstract and ephemeral - difficult to wrangle.

Quotes:

- “The inward quest for communion becomes a quest for outward relationship: at home in our own souls, we become more at home with each other.”

- "Good teachers possess a capacity for connectedness. They are able to weave a complex web of connections among themselves, their subjects, and their students so that students can learn to weave a world for themselves. The methods used by these weavers vary widely: lectures, Socratic dialogues, laboratory experiments, collaborative problem solving, creative chaos. The connections made by good teachers are held not in their methods but in their hearts meaning heart in its ancient sense, as the place where intellect and emotion and spirit and will converge in the human self.

"As good teachers weave the fabric that joins them with students and subjects, the heart is the loom on which the threads are tied, the tension is held, the shuttle flies, and the fabric is stretched tight Small wonder, then, that teaching tugs at the heart, opens the heart, even breaks the heart-and the more one loves teaching, the more heartbreaking it can be. The courage to teach is the courage to keep one's heart open in those very moments when the heart is asked to hold more than it is able so that teacher and students and subject can be woven into the fabric of community that learning, and living, require.”

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Michelle Kuhn

Jan 04, 2018Michelle Kuhn rated it really liked it

Shelves: nonfiction, education

Very interesting teaching philosophy- interweaving spirituality and authentic selfhood into the education profession. Palmer urges teachings to tend to what he calls their inner landscape, convinced that good teaching can only rise from a genuine knowledge of self and a respect of your students' dignity. Instead of giving into the myth that teacher must display of power and authority, functioning as the objective arbiter of facts and information, Palmer suggests that the teacher "opens space instead of occupying it." He is a proponent of the dialogical method of education first espoused by Paulo Freire, that learning happens when all members of the community function as both teachers and learners. This is impossible if the teacher is teaching from fear, a desire to prove herself, or as a performance. Instead, a teacher needs to convey their passion for the subject and students by being courageously vulnerable about his own ideas and thoughts, therefore creating the opportunity and safety for students to do the same. "The conclusion seems clear: we cannot know the great things of the universe until we know ourselves to be great things." (less)

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Kate

Apr 13, 2020Kate rated it liked it

Shelves: non-fiction, professional-texts

This text is very philosophical and not at all practical, which for better or worse makes it very unlike most teaching books. Read it if you want to mull over the question “Why was I called to teach and how do I teach in a way that honors that calling?” There are many quotable nuggets and plenty to think about. (Given current events, his reflections on the difference between social movements and fascist “pseudo movements” and failures in medical institutions stood out in the closing chapters.) I took notes and made a lists of things I should be journaling about. But, in the end, I think there are more relevant texts and talks out there for K-12 teachers in this present moment. I’ve been simultaneously rereading We Got This by Cornelius Minor and it is practically a playbook for putting Palmer’s philosophy into action in the K-12 classroom. Anything by Brené Brown, Angela Watson, or Elena Aguilar more accessibly addresses teaching with authenticity and attending to your “inner teacher landscape.” (less)

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Nicole Means

Aug 08, 2018Nicole Means rated it really liked it

Every time I caught a glimpse of this book on my nightstand, Tom Petty’s “Learning to Fly” popped into my head. I wish I was crafty enough to come up with some deep metaphor comparing flying to teaching but after spending a day teaching, my brain is jello. No matter how many years as an educator, “The Courage To Teach” provides a much needed reminder to all teachers to keep trekking; despite the many obstacles we face, our students need us.

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Jeff Colston

Jun 18, 2020Jeff Colston rated it liked it

This book was definitely interesting! I did it alongside fellow teachers in a book study.

Many of the ideas were still pretty abstract for me, though, and hard to grasp, even after reading the paragraphs a few times.

He offers good insight into teaching from your own “identity and integrity” and I enjoyed reading especially the first few chapters. I think that it may be a bit more applicable to those who teach at the college level, but still somewhat applicable to K-12 teachers.