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Book Review
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The Courage to Teach
Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher’s Life
Parker J. Palmer
224 pages
Jossey-Bass, 1998
Retail Price: $22.00
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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 identify and integrity of the teacher.”
Parker J. Palmer is a highly respected writer and traveling teacher who works independently on issues of education, community, spirituality, and social change; he offers workshops, lectures and retreats in the United States and abroad.
Other Books by Parker J. Palmer
The Active Life
The Company of Strangerr
Caring for the Commonweal (coeditor)
The Promise of Paradox
To Know As We Are Known
Let Your Life Speak
Book Review
Many years ago a rather well known Greek philosopher uttered the following brief but critical advice, "Know thyself." More recently, Stephen Covey in his book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People again reminds us that the foundation for a successful, productive life is inward exploration - the ability to know oneself, one's visions and goals. Yet after many centuries of this sage advice, Allen Finstein remarks, "Small is the number of them that see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts." It is this lack of self knowledge and self exploration that the book The Courage To Teach addresses. Its author is Parker Palmer and his passion is for educators to "see with our own eyes and hearts."
The Courage To Teach is a wonderful opportunity for educators to begin to examine the real journey of educational reform. This inward journey, unlike the many and varied educational reform movements over the past several decades, focuses not on techniques, educational philosophy or organizations, but on the inside of each teacher. Palmer argues forcefully that the heart of teaching and the improvement of teaching lies at the inside of each of us. The journey, he readily admits, is guaranteed to be messy and alive with entanglements and conflicts. You will face not only your own inward feelings but will also encounter organizational cultures that may well reflect cynicism, competitiveness, and compartmentalization.
Yet it is Palmer's position that if you possess a passion and a commitment for education and particularly for children, it is a journey that you must take. He believes strongly in the power of the individual to make a real difference. He references Rosa Park and her refusal to move to the back of the bus. When asked why she refused to move on that particular day, her answer was simple, "I was not tired physically. No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in." One can only ask if we have ever felt that way in our career in education.
Teachers who care, can make a real difference. Can we change the world as Rosa Park? Perhaps not. But we can change our own world, our own classroom, and our own schools. That indeed is the challenge of this excellent provocative book - the challenge to take the time and the effort to make a real difference for ourselves, our students, and our schools.
The Courage To Teach will serve as a wonderful mentor in your journey - a journey that once begun will echo Robert Frost's words, "And I took the road less traveled by - and that has made all the difference."
Bert Blake is Superintendent of the Lowell Area Schools in Lowell, MI. The son of school superintendent, Bert has been involved in education all of his life as student, teacher, high school principal and administrator.
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