The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher's Life Author: | Language: English | ISBN:
B002GDEWG2 | Format: PDF
The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher's Life Description
This book builds on a simple premise: good teaching cannot be reduced to technique but is rooted in the identity and integrity of the teacher. Good teaching takes myriad forms but good teachers share one trait: they are authentically present in the classroom, in community with their students and their subject. They possess "a capacity for connectedness" and are able to weave a complex web of connections between themselves, their subjects, and their students, helping their students weave a world for themselves. Connections made by good teachers are held not in their methods but in their hearts - the place where intellect, emotion, spirit, and will converge in the human self - when we choose to live authentic lives.
- Audible Audio Edition
- Listening Length: 8 hours and 33 minutes
- Program Type: Audiobook
- Version: Unabridged
- Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.
- Audible.com Release Date: July 6, 2009
- Whispersync for Voice: Ready
- Language: English
- ASIN: B002GDEWG2
The front cover of `The Courage to Teach,' Parker J. Palmer's spiritual exploration of teaching, is a painting of a sheer cliff overlooking an expansive lake. Birds mount up from the shores, and ribbony waterfalls pour down the rock face. Overhead, though out of the picture, the sun breaks through the clouds, casting a dusky but revelatory glow over the whole scene. It would be an appropriate metaphor for the book except for one problem - which metaphor? The joy of sunshine after the rain? The freedom of a bird in flight? The lyrical power of a waterfall?
So it is with A Courage to Teach. The picture that emerges is a richly toned portrait of `the inner landscape of a teacher's life' (as the cover advertises), but the reader is never quite sure where to focus. Perhaps this is Palmer's intention. It is a mystical book, reminiscent of Richard Bach's Jonathan Livingston Seagull or some other philosophical meandering, from which one can never quite glean a specific thesis. The fact that each chapter starts with a poetry excerpt is revealing, as is one reviewer's quote: `This book is good news ... for all of us who are committed to the healing of our world.' Whatever that means, it sure sounds nice - can I join? Snide remarks aside, the book is inspiring at its best and well-meaning but muddled at its worst.
Just to add a few comments on various sections of the book...
Palmer makes many good points, but much of the time, he wanders from truism to proverb and back again, sounding somewhat like a New Age self-help book. `You need only claim the events of your life to make yourself yours.' `The voice of the inward teacher reminds me of my truth as I negotiate the force field of my life.' Huh?
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