The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher’s Life (Book)
Parker J. Palmer, Author.  San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 1998.

The Courage to Teach asserts that a good teacher guides students toward "more truthful ways of seeing and being in the world." But such guidance is only possible when a strong sense of personal identity infuses a teacher's work and when teachers act with integrity—choosing life-giving ways of relating to the complex connections among their subjects, their students, and themselves.

Parker Palmer points to cultural forces that work against good teaching. One such force is "objectivism"—the view that truth is only obtainable by treating our subjects as discrete entities disconnected from ourselves. For Palmer, knowledge is relational, and deep knowledge alters us. Failing to honor that relational dimension makes knowledge "lifeless" and ultimately distorts the truth.

Another such force is "either/or" thinking that refuses to honor the paradoxical nature of reality. Quoting physicist Niels Bohr, Palmer states that "the opposite of a profound truth can be another profound truth." By failing to honor paradoxes, we separate the head from the heart, facts from feelings, theory from practice, and teaching from learning.

Such forces can be overcome, however, by individuals claiming their identity and integrity, refusing to divide their inner and outer worlds. When these individuals find one another and form communities of shared vision, change can occur.

Reading this book, congregational leaders will find parallels between the forces that thwart good teaching and the forces that thwart transformation in their faith communities. Congregational change agents, as well as religious educators, will benefit from the author's wisdom.

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