The Courage to Teach Guide for Reflection and Renewal

By Parker J. Palmer and Megan Scribner

20th ANNIVERSARY EDITION

The Courage to Teach Guide for Reflection & Renewal is a helpful companion to Parker J. Palmer's classic work on restoring identity and integrity to professional life. A superb resource for those who wish to extend their exploration of the ideas in The Courage to Teach, as individuals or part of a study group, the Guide provides practical ways to create "safe space" for honest reflection and probing conversations and offers chapter-by-chapter questions and exercises to further explore the many insights in The Courage to Teach.

The bonus online content includes a 70-minute interview with Parker Palmer, in which Palmer reflects on a wide range of subjects including the heart of the teacher, the crisis in education, diverse ways of knowing, relationships in teaching and learning, approaches to institutional transformation, and teachers as "culture heroes." Discussion questions related to the topics explored in the interview have been integrated into the Guide, giving individuals and study groups a chance to have "a conversation with the author" as well as an engagement with the text.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wiley
• Release date: Aug 4, 2017
• ISBN: 9781119439677

Parker J. Palmer

Parker J. Palmer, a popular speaker and educator, is also the author of The Active Life. He received the 1993 award for "Outstanding Service to Higher Education" from the Council of Independent Colleges.

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ISBN 9781119434818 (paper)

ISBN 9781119439530 (ebk)

ISBN 9781119439677 (ebk)

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CONTENTS

Foreword

Introduction

Part One: Guidelines for Individual and Group Study

Individual Study

Group Study

A Word of Encouragement

Note

Part Two: Questions and Activities for Each Chapter

Chapter I: The Heart of a Teacher: Identity and Integrity in Teaching

Chapter II: A Culture of Fear: Education and the Disconnected Life

Chapter III: The Hidden Wholeness: Paradox in Teaching and Learning

Chapter IV: Knowing in Community: Joined by the Grace of Great Things

Chapter V: Teaching in Community: A Subject-Centered Education

Chapter VI: Learning in Community: The Conversation of Colleagues

Chapter VII: Divided No More: Teaching from a Heart of Hope

Afterword to the Tenth Anniversary Edition: The New Professional: Education for Transformation

Appendixes

Appendix A: Suggestions for Organizing a Courage to Teach Book Discussion Group

Sample Invitation Letter for a Courage to Teach Book Discussion Group

Sample Follow-Up Letter for a Courage to Teach Book Discussion Group

Appendix B: The Heart of a Teacher: Identity and Integrity in Teaching

We Teach Who We Are

Teaching Beyond Technique

Teaching and True Self

When Teachers Lose Heart

Listening to the Teacher Within

Institutions and the Human Heart

Notes

Appendix C: The Clearness Committee: A Communal Approach to Discernment

The Truth Beneath My Fear

Learning to Ask

Gaining Clarity

No One to Fool but Myself

Cause for Celebration

A Bird in the Hand

Notes

Appendix D: About the Center for Courage & Renewal

Appendix E: The Courage to Teach: A Retreat Program for Personal Renewal and Institutional Transformation

The Courage to Teach Program

The Courage to Teach and Institutional Transformation

Notes

Appendix F: Resources for Courage to Teach Discussion Groups

Primary Resources

Other Works by Parker J. Palmer

Additional Resources

The Authors

About the Companion Media

EULA

Foreword

When I published The Courage to Teach in 1997, I hoped it would contribute to the growing national conversation about reforming education, especially teaching and learning. Over the past two decades, that hope has been fulfilled to a greater degree than I ever imagined possible. Now, in 2017, with the publication of a 20th anniversary edition of The Courage to Teach, my hope is that the book will continue to contribute to a conversation that has become wider, deeper, and more persuasive as the years have gone by.

That the book has been a best seller is gratifying, of course. But far more important to me are the messages I receive from educators who tell me that The Courage to Teach speaks their truth—and that they are acting on some of its ideas. Today, twenty years after publication, it seems clear that the book has contributed not only to a conversation but to a movement for education reform, animated by research, publications, workshops, and conferences, and sometimes resulting in transformed institutional policies and practices.

The fact that Courage has attracted many readers from worlds other than education—including medicine, ministry, law, politics, philanthropy, and nonprofit leadership—has both gratified and surprised me. And yet, looking back, perhaps I should have expected this. Ever since the book came out, people have asked me, "Why not a book called The Courage to Lead, The Courage to Serve, or The Courage to Heal? So many insights in The Courage to Teach apply to other fields."

The serving professions attract many people who are animated by imperatives of the heart. Their work is challenging, and frequently housed in dysfunctional institutions. So teachers, physicians, clergy, and the like often suffer from losing heart—and the quality of their work suffers with them. Many of them seek some sort of personal and professional renewal, asking, How can I take heart again so I can give heart to others—which is what called me to this work in the first place.

As a writer, I've always wanted to do more than put ideas on the page. I've wanted to put wheels on those ideas, creating programmatic vehicles that readers can ride toward destinations of their own choosing, including renewal. That's why, in the 1990s, while I was writing The Courage to Teach, I planted the seeds of what became the Center for Courage & Renewal—a nonprofit that's still going strong today, with some 300 well-trained facilitators around the world, who offer retreats and workshops for people in many walks of life. Put simply, the Center helps people take heart so they can give heart to those they serve—students and patients, parishioners and clients, staff and other stakeholders. (Information about the Center and its programs can be found in Appendix D and at www.CourageRenewal.org.) Please think of this Guide as yet another way of putting wheels on the ideas related to The Courage to Teach.

With this edition of the Guide you will find a link to an online series of audio and video interviews with me, and a video tour of a retreat program for personal and professional renewal—also called The Courage to Teach—that has developed over the past twenty-five years. (The online contents, as listed in About the Companion Media in this book, are available at http://bit.ly/CTTconv. More information about The Courage to Teach program, which is now up and running across the country, will be found in Appendixes D and E and at www.CourageRenewal.org). We hope that the online videos will make it even easier for individuals and groups to be in dialogue with the ideas in the book.

Margaret Mead said, Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has. I am grateful to the Jossey-Bass staff for understanding those words, for wanting to help people in many lines of work live into their meaning, and for doing the hard work necessary to create this Guide and get it into the right hands.

Special thanks go to Jossey-Bass editor Kate Bradford, who was instrumental in updating this edition of the Guide. Thanks also to four treasured colleagues who are no longer at Jossey-Bass: my long-time editor Sheryl Fullerton, production editor Joanne Clapp Fullagar, editor Carol Brown, and the late Sarah Polster. Sarah brought me to Jossey-Bass, and I will always cherish her memory. Thanks also to Rachel Livsey, who wrote the first draft of the original Guide and provided a solid framework for it; to Judy Brown, Janis Claflin, Debbie DeWitt, Sally Hare, Marianne Houston, Marcy Jackson, Rick Jackson, and Penny Williamson—my friends and colleagues from the Center for Courage & Renewal—for providing materials from their own work with teachers; and to Marcy Jackson, Rick Jackson, Sharon Palmer, and Sarah Polster for their help in editing the first edition of the Guide. And thanks to David Leo-Nyquist for his thoughtful reflections on how the Guide could help readers understand that the phrase the courage to teach now names not only a book but a program for personal and professional renewal and a growing movement for institutional transformation.

Last, but far from least, my heartfelt thanks go to my dear friend and colleague Megan Scribner for helping to create this Guide with her typical skill, speed, and savoir faire. Without Megan's good work, the Guide would not be.

Parker J. Palmer

Madison, Wisconsin

May 2017

Introduction

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.

Those words, from the first page of The Courage to Teach, also describe the kind of teachers for whom we wrote this Guide for Reflection and Renewal. Designed to support both solitary reflection and group dialogue, the Guide offers a variety of approaches to exploring the inner landscape of a teacher's life.

Why embark on an inner journey in the first place? Be­cause 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 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 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.

Of course, this focus on the teacher's inner life is not exactly a conventional approach to problem solving in education! We normally try to resolve educational dilemmas by adopting a new technique or changing the curriculum, not by deepening our own sense of identity and integrity. We focus on the whats and the hows of teaching—What subjects shall we teach? and What methods shall we use?—questions that are obviously worth asking.

But rarely, if ever, do we ask the equally important 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? And how can educational institutions help teachers sustain and deepen the selfhood from which good teaching comes?

This Guide, like the book to which it is kin, invites us to explore the inner landscape of a teacher's life along three distinct but related pathways: intellectual, emotional, and spiritual. By intellectual, I mean the way we think about teaching and learning, about our subjects and our students. By emotional, I mean the way we and our students feel as we teach and learn. By spiritual, I refer to the diverse ways we deal with our eternal longing to be connected

Reviews for The Courage to Teach Guide for Reflection and Renewal

[vincentdarlage · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book was both relevant and timely to my own approach and problems in teaching. This is a wonderful book, and many teachers & educational leaders would do well to read it and take it to heart.

[readhanded · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I've heard everyone and their brother say that The Courage to Teach is a must-read for anyone in education, but I just couldn't get into it. I definitely found some gems, but Palmer's thoughts were not terribly well organized and he often repeated points. I didn't hate it, it just felt a lot longer than its 200-something pages. Maybe because classroom teaching is only one part of my job rather than the majority of it, I didn't relate well enough. I don't know. Educators should still read it, even if it's only so you can be a part of the conversation about it.

[jerrycolonna · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Beautiful for leaders to read as we are all, always teaching.

[bigmoose_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

An excellent treatise on the art and science of teaching. Chapter two about teaching in the Culture of Fear was especially insightful. While this one is a little dated, the concepts and principles are timeless.

[kathleenthereader · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Great book for teachers, or ayone who cares about what they do and integrity.

[flyingbarney · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

For anybody who is thinking of being a teacher, an educator, or a facilitator of learning.

[terrib_54 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I read this book sometime during my second year of university teaching. I couldn't understand the conflicting feelings I had about teaching -- some days I felt like such a "phony" standing in front of these students presuming to teach them anything and other days I felt like a master teacher. Reading Parker J. Palmer's "The Courage to Teach" set my mind at ease. Here was someone who had been teaching much longer than me yet he still had days when he felt he had failed his students. This book is a good reminder of why we choose to teach and a great encouragement to keep teaching.

[brettmoller · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Just a great inspirational read when life as a teacher gets tough.

[mfassold_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Parker Palmer has a big vocabulary and makes you pull out the dicionary every now and then, but reading this book is a must for any current or future teacher. Teaching is a calling based around the love of students and subject. Reading Palmer is like mining for gold; a lot of work with rich rewards.

[mpardee_3 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I have read and re-read this wonderful volume--both on my own and in conjunction with educator colleagues from several schools. I have highlighted and re-highlighted many passages. This book really bears re-reading well. To me, that attests to its lasting value.One of my favorite excerpts, for instance, is this one (which falls on pp. 107 - 108 of Courage to Teach):"When we are at our best, it is because the grace of great things has evoked from us the virtues that give educational community its finest form:* We invite diversity into our community not because it is politically correct but because diverse viewpoints are demanded by the manifold mysteries of great things.* We embrace ambiguity not because we are confused or indecisive but because we understand the inadequacy of our own concepts to embrace the vastness of great things.* We welcome creative conflict not because we are angry or hostile but because conflict is required to correct our biases and prejudices about the nature of great things.* We practice honesty not only because we owe it to one another but because to lie about what we have seen would be to betray the truth of great things.* We experience humility not because we have fought and lost but because humility is the only lens through which great things can be seen--and once we have seen them, humility is the only posture possible...."