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

Palmer, Parker J.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0787910589 ISBN 13: 9780787910587

Publisher: Jossey-Bass Inc Pub, 1997

Synopsis

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

Teachers choose their vocation for reasons of the heart, because they care deeply about their students and abouttheir subject. But the demands of teaching cause too manyeducators 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.

About this title

About the Author

PARKER J. PALMER is a highly respected writer who works indepAndently on issues in education, community, spirituality, and social change; he offers lectures, workshops, and retreats across the country. In 1998, The Leadership Project, a survey of 11,000 educators, named Dr. Palmer as one of the thirty most influential senior leaders in higher education and one of ten key 'agAnda-setters' of the past decade: He has inspired a generation of teachers and reformers with evocative visions of community, knowing, and spiritual wholeness. Dr. Palmer is senior associate of the American Association for Higher Education and senior advisor to the Fetzer Institute, for whom he designed the Teacher Formation Program for K-12 teachers. Author of such widely-praised books as The Company of Strangers, The Active Life, and To Know As We Are Known, he holds a Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley. He lives in Madison, Wisconsin.

From the Back Cover

A moving, profound, and exhilarating journey toward discovering the true spirit of teaching

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.

"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."Good teaching comes in myriad forms, but good teachers share one trait: they are truly present in the classroom, deeply engaged with their students and their subject. They possess "a capacity for connectedness" and "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 connections made by good teachers are held not in their methods but in their hearts--the place where intellect and emotion and spirit and will converge in the human self."Palmer guides us through the inner work of teaching in order to help us create communities of learning--and he calls educational institutions to support teachers in this work: "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

Reviews

Palmer (To Know as We Are Known, HarperCollins, 1993) is a senior adviser at the Fetzer Institute and has taught at Beloit College and Georgetown University. He discusses the inner life of the dedicated teacher and how that life shapes teaching and learning. According to Palmer, "Teaching, like any truly human activity, emerges from one's inwardness, for better or worse." In this book, he explores the inner landscape of the teaching self, and to understand that landscape more fully, he discusses three important paths that must be taken?intellectual, emotional, and spiritual. Recommended for all teachers, this book would be a valuable addition to professional and teacher education collections.?Barbara S. Meagher, Central Connecticut State Univ., New Britain
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Jossey-Bass Inc Pub
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0787910589
• ISBN 13: 9780787910587
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 224