The Courage to Teach : Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher's Life

Rating:
Summary: Read it if you must
Review: 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?

The section about bringing paradoxes back into education, however, is wonderful! It seems to speak directly to the United States, where a childish either-or mentality prevails as we live in the shadow of 9/11/2001. How much more might we have achieved as a nation, both at home and abroad, in these last three-odd years had we not been so infatuated with our leaders' black-and-white worldview?

The chapter on a 'community of truth' hits a few high notes, but the conclusion finds Palmer flailing at mysticism, as he descends into pseudo-theology to relate education and spirituality: `The sacred [is] the mysterium tremendum, the numinous energy at the heart of reality.' He would be better off following the example of Annie Dillard, whom he quotes more than once, but whose writing has far more clarity and power. Either call it God or don't.

I was quite inspired, though, by the idea of a `clearness committee,' whereby a group of four or five peers sits down with a teacher who needs help with a particular issue. These peers have a simple job - infuriatingly simple. They must not, under any circumstances, offer advice on whom to consult, which books to read, what technique to try, or the like; they are charged to ask only `real questions' - those that assume nothing and have no hidden agendas or intimations behind them. The group then spend several consecutive hours in unhurried discussion of the issue, focusing complete attention on the person at the centre. Palmer notes (and I can attest from marital experience) that this not only helps teachers teach better - perhaps they have figured out how to `negotiate the force field'? - but also works wonders on life in general. People who have participated in clearness committees tend to be more caring, patient listeners towards their family, and they tend to think more instinctively about the other person's self-worth and point of view before their own.

Though Palmer does include a proper set of endnotes and even an index, there is scant wrapping up in `The Courage to Teach.' The reader is subliminally encouraged to see the limitless possibilities of `healing the world,' and the book simply ends - or perhaps it doesn't. One cannot quite be sure. However, the effect of the last chapter is rather powerful, using the story of Rosa Parks to exemplify the repercussions of deciding to live an `undivided life.'

I am a teacher (of English as a second language), and I would give this book a qualified recommendation. Read it, plow through it, but don't expect your life to be changed.

Rating:
Summary: Your mileage will vary
Review: This book appeals to teachers who value reflection and connecting with their internal selves. Someone looking for a practical, direct guide to better teaching should look elsewhere. Having said that, for those who are energized by internal dialogues and explorations will find this to be a powerful inspiration on the motivations and goals of teaching.

Rating:
Summary: Good book but difficult to follow at times
Review: This book is probably better for high school teachers and college professors than it is for elementary and middle school educators. Very philosophical and sometimes hard to follow. I like the way he uses quotes from literary works as well as real life experiences to bring out his points. His arguments for subject-centered teaching; the need for connectedness between teacher, subject, and students; the collective inquiry approach; and the need for educators to have more collaborative time are thoroughly presented and convincing.

Rating:
Summary: very hard to get interested in
Review: This book started off and ended extremely slow and to me, uninteresting. There were a few good points on using community to teach but not enough to worry yourself over. The cover of the book however is very pretty

Rating:
Summary: Confidence building - fear reducing book
Review: This book was required reading in an education course I took. I am so glad that it was. It helped me embrace the contradictions inherent in my profession. So many educators and politicians spend so much time trying to "choose sides" between philosophies that are contradictory, but not necessarily mutually exclusive. I am now much more comfortable with my decisions as a teacher. Reading this book helped me stop being afraid. Most of the time, I prefer books that give specific strategies and techniques to use in the classroom, but without those, this book was definitely worth reading.

Rating:
Summary: Refreshing for teachers on any level.
Review: This book was very comforting for me as a newer teacher. I look forward to revisisting it in the later years of my career to help measure growth and guide future changes.

Rating:
Summary: Thought-provoking
Review: Though not an easy book to read, as a teacher of some thirty years I find this book to be challenging, inspiring and definitely thought-provoking. Too often we as teachers rely on the tried and true and as a result become somewhat stale. Mr. Palmer is challenging us to reexamine not only our teaching styles but ourselves as teachers. I shall read it through time and again and would definitely recommend it to anyone who has the heart and soul of a teacher.

Rating:
Summary: A book that makes the teacher look inward
Review: What made us teachers in the first place? Palmer asks. We fell in love with a subject that spoke to us deeply and personally. Why does that intial inspiration so often leave us, and the daily grind of the job take its place? Palmer tries to restore that depth, that bright inspiration that got us going as teachers in the first place. It will take courage, he points out, for us teachers to speak and act from that deep place where our subject inspires us; but for our students' sake, and for the sake of our own souls, we must take that courage. His story on page 59 of the shop teacher who finally grasped the courage to be honest with his principal is one of the most heartening stories I've ever read. The entire book speaks powerfully to both the mind and heart of those of us who teach. And it also gives news of a national movement forming to bring teachers into dialogue with each other about the spiritual dimensions of their teaching. This is a much-needed book, one that inspires teachers to hope and to dare to be fully human in their living and their teaching.