The Courage to Teach
Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher's Life
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3.0 • 1 Rating
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- $21.99
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- $21.99
Publisher Description
Wisdom that's been inspiring, motivating, and guiding teachers for two decades
The Courage to Teach speaks to the joys and pains that teachers of every sort know well. Over the last 20 years, the book has helped countless educators reignite their passion, redirect their practice, and deal with the many pressures that accompany their vital work.
Enriched by a new Foreword from Diana Chapman Walsh, the book builds on a simple premise: good teaching can never be reduced to technique. Good teaching comes from the identity and integrity of the teacher, that core of self where intellect, emotion, and spirit converge—enabling 'live encounters' between teachers, students, and subjects that are the key to deep and lasting learning. Good teachers love learners, learning, and the teaching life in a way that builds trust with students and colleagues, animates their daily practice, and keeps them coming back tomorrow.
Reclaim your own vision and purpose against the threat of burn-out Understand why good teaching cannot be reduced to technique alone Explore and practice the relational traits that good teachers have in common Learn how to forge learning connections with your students and "teach across the gap"
Whether used for personal study, book club exploration, or professional development, The Courage to Teach is rich with time-honored wisdom, and contemporary clarity about the ancient arts of teaching and learning.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Spiritual nurturing has been at the heart of both of Palmer's previous books, The Active Life and To Know as We Are Known. A teacher, speaker and writer who contends that teaching is an integral part of all his work, Palmer now explores the spirituality of teaching. He contends that the task of teaching is filled with joy and fear, success and failure, but, he says, "good teaching cannot be reduced to technique; good teaching comes from the identity and integrity of the teacher." For Palmer, such integrity comes from the inner self of the teacher, and he argues that the courage to teach involves probing the heart to find the "heart's longing to be connected with the largeness of life--a longing that animates love and work." Palmer begins by arguing that many current teaching strategies, like the traditional lecture-hall setting where the teacher dispassionately dispenses knowledge, promote disconnectedness among students and teachers. He goes on to contend that teaching from a spiritually introspective position promotes a community of learning in which the teachers and students are connected in the learning process. Palmer lays bare his own struggles in engaging prose, and his book is sure to inspire the educational community to think in new ways about its tasks.
