MiddleWeb Booklist Chat:
The Courage to Teach



Our two-week chat about Parker Palmer's The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher's Life was supported by this information.

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Ellen Berg is going to moderate the chat. Recently, Ellen wrote this note to the main discussion List:
Have you read _The Courage to Teach_ by Parker Palmer and are dying to discuss it with others?

Have you heard the buzz about _The Courage to Teach_ and you want to see what all the hub-bub is about before you dish out the money to buy the book?

Have you never heard of _The Courage to Teach_ before in your life, but you enjoy talking about your profession?

If you answered "YES!" to any of the above questions, I invite you (encourage you, implore you!) to join the book chat beginning this Sunday, July 7, and continuing as long as we have ideas to share. Our esteemed colleague, Tom Dickinson, has stated that every preservice teacher should read this book, and I completely agree with him. _The Courage to Teach_ pushes teachers to think beyond pedagogy, school reform, and testing, focusing instead on who we are as teachers, what we bring to the table, and how we can maximize our contributions while avoiding pitfalls such as isolation and fear.

I am looking forward to a rejuvinating, exciting chat with all of you!


For folks who haven't read the book (and those who have), Ellen found this piece of writing by Palmer on the Web. It touches on many of the book's topics:

The Courage to Teach: Teaching in the Face of Fear



Here's an excerpt from an early page in Courage to Teach:


This book builds on a simple premise: good teaching cannot be reduced to technique; good teaching comes from the identity and integrity of the teacher.

The premise is simple, but its implications are not. It will take time to unfold what I do and do not mean by those words. But here is one way to put it: in every class I teacher, my ability to connect with my students, and to connect them with the subject, depends less on the methods I use than on the degree to which I know and trust my selfhood -- and am willing to make it available and vulnerable in the service of learning.

My evidence for this claim come, in part, from years of asking students to tell me about their good teachers. Listening to those stories, it becomes impossible to claim that all good teachers use similar techniques: some lecture nonstop and others speak very little; some stay close to their material and others loose the imagination; some teach with the carrot and others with the stick.

But in every story I have heard, good teachers share one trait: a strong sense of personal identity that infuses their work.


And here's some more:

"To teach is to create a space in which the community of truth is practiced."

"What is noble in the quest for common good may be ignoble in a quest for truth: truth is not determined by democratic means. In a democratic society we agree that once the ballots are counted, whoever or whatever receives the highest vote is the leader or the law of the land - and within
the bounds of conscience, we agree to follow. But in the quest for truth we make no such agreement, nor should we, for truth by majority rule is no truth at all. One sure way to miss truth in any field is to count the votes: had Copernicus and Galileo done so, the sun might still be circling the earth."


Ellen Berg wrote about this book in several of her diary entries this year.

http://www.middleweb.com/mw/msdiaries/01-02wklydiaries/EB14.html

http://www.middleweb.com/mw/msdiaries/01-02wklydiaries/EB15.html

http://www.middleweb.com/mw/msdiaries/01-02wklydiaries/EB16.html

Tom Dickinson, one of the teacher educators on our List, wrote:

"If I could put one book in a teacher's hand this would be this book."

You can find out more about The Courage to Teach, and read some sample pages, at the Amazon website. This link leads you directly to the page about the book.



The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher's Life
by Parker J. Palmer (Hardcover)

List Price: $23.95
Amazon Price: $16.77
You Save: $7.18 (30%)

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Stories of the Courage to Teach: Honoring the Teacher's Heart
by Sam M. Intrator, Parker J. Palmer (Foreword) (Hardcover)

List Price: $23.95
Amazon Price: $16.77

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The Courage to Teach: A Guide for Reflection and Renewal
by Rachel C. Livsey, Parker J. Palmer (Paperback - October 1998)

List Price: $8.00
Amazon Price: $8.00