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Recapturing the Courage to Teach:
An Interview with Parker J. Palmer
by Joy Jones
With piles and piles of papers
to grade, a crop of students who could win the Olympics
for bad behavior, and when comments by parents,
administrators and the press all seem to regard the
profession with no
respect, it may be hard to remember why you ever chose
to teach.
Not to despair. Parker J. Palmer, Ph.D., specializes in
helping educators nurture their inner teacher. Palmer is
a former university professor and the founder of the
Center for Teacher Formation. "We have created a
national program which is now at work in twenty-five
cities", he
explained. "Groups of twenty-five K-12 teachers meet for
eight weekend
workshops over a two year period. They work exclusively
on the inner life
of the teacher, in community", Palmer said. "That means
that our focus is
not on developing curriculum, changing the bureaucracy,
or advocating for
better pay." The program is designed to help teachers
gain what Palmer
calls vocational renewal - the rejuvenation of the
spirit and the heart to teach. "These are people who
went into the profession with a very deep
sense of calling", said Palmer. "But over the years, the
abusive conditions that teachers have to work under
causes a lot of that passion to get lost. The
participants in the Teacher Formation project go on a
deep and searching journey to recover that passion."
"What's really important is that everything in the
program is an invitation to go on that inner journey",
said Palmer. "We do a lot of things to help create a
community. People do that inner work with each other's
support and encouragement. And they come out of it
recommitted to teaching. The commitment of the
participating teachers to each other is also thorough
and long-lasting. I led the pilot group for this program
in 94-96, and that group is still meeting with each
other", he said.
Palmer has written extensively about ways educators can
pursue and renew identity and integrity. Among his
publications are "The Courage to Teach: Exploring the
Inner Landscape of a Teacher's Life" and "Let Your Life
Speak: Listening for The Voice of Vocation". Experiences
of teachers who have been in the Teacher Formation
program or other similar programs are reflected in a new
work, due out in April of 2002, "Stories of the Courage
to Keep: Honoring the Teachers Heart", edited by Sam
Intrator.
In all his work and his words, Palmer's respect - no
reverence - for the
teaching profession is evident. "Teachers are our
culture heroes", he
stated. "They're the people who are asked to solve all
the problems that
society can't solve and are beaten up for their supposed
inadequacies."
This teacher of teachers has always had a fascination
with the teaching
learning process and has helped guide the careers of
hundreds of educators at every level from kindergarten
through post-graduate study.
He has also mentored others as part of his role as a
teacher. "I think that mentoring is a very remarkable
relationship which has two qualities to it", he said.
"The first is unconditional love. This is a relationship
where the student or mentee feels totally accepted as he
is." Palmer goes on to describe the other quality, which
could seem contradictory to the first: "There is a
charged expectancy that the student will grow. This
growth is not a demand that the student change, but an
invitation to stretch. When you're in this space, when
you're held this way by the mentor, you really want to
grow", said Palmer. "You become more fully who you are."
If this sounds more like what you'd hear in a therapy
session or a sermon, that's because Palmer does believe
that many of the problems we face come from being out of
alignment with our true nature. "So many of these issues
are spiritual issues", he said. He directs those who are
having an overdose of trials and tribulations to ask
themselves, "In what ways am I running upstream to my
own nature? When one can stop living his or her life
against the grain then more harmony and satisfaction in
life usually results."
I had to ask Palmer how he got so wise about these
matters. His response? "I learned the hard way."
To learn more about the work of the Center for Teacher
Formation, go to
www.teacherformation.org.
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