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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 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 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 "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 to help us create communities of learning --
and he calls on educational institutions to support teachers
in this work. "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?"
For all who have been inspired by Palmer's
now-classic To Know As We Are Known: Education as a Spiritual
Journey, this pioneering exploration of the teaching
life is a long-awaited sequel that should be read by anyone
who teaches, works with teachers, or cares about education.
Parker J. Palmer is a highly respected
writer and traveling teacher who works independently on
issues in education, community, spirituality, and social
change; he offers workshops, lectures, and retreats in this
country and abroad. Dr. Palmer is a 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. The 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.
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