The Courage to Teach
Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher’s Life
by Parker Palmer
Summary
According to Parker Palmer, “…good teaching cannot be reduced to good technique; good teaching comes from the identity and integrity of the teacher.”
The condition of the teacher’s soul has tremendous impact on the life and learning of her students. Thus, teachers must be taught to care for their hearts and encouraged to live undivided lives. Students need teachers who desperately cling to the passion that brought them into the profession, speak up with truth against unjust institutional practices, and refuse to be complicit in a system that kills the heart of learning.
Author’s Website
The Courage to Teach - Book by Parker Palmer
Favorite Quotes
“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?”
“…we train doctors to repair the body but not to honor the spirit; clergy to be CEOs but not spiritual guides; teachers to master techniques but not to engage their students’ souls.”
“As we reweave our tattered civic fabric, educational institutions are among our most important looms.”
“Could teachers gather around the great thing called ‘teaching and learning’ and explore its mysteries with the same respect we accord any subject worth knowing?”
“When teaching is reduced to technique, we shrink teachers as well as their craft—and people do not willingly return to a conversation that diminishes them.”
“People who start movements do so not because they hate an institution but because they love it too much to let it descend to its lowest form.”
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