The Courage to Teach

A profoundly moving, utterly passionate, and inspired articulation of the call to, and the pain and joy of, teaching. It is must reading for any and every teacher, at any level. -Jon Kabat-Zinn, author, Wherever You Go, There You Are, and coauthor, Everyday Blessings For forty years, Parker J. Palmer has worked on behalf of teachers and others who choose vocations for reasons of the heart, but may lose heart because of the troubled, sometimes toxic, systems in which they work. Hundreds of thousands of readers have benefitted from The Courage to Teach, which takes teachers on an inner journey toward reconnecting with themselves, their students, and their colleagues, and toward reclaiming vocational passion. The Courage to Teach 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, deeply connected with their students and their subject. These connections are held in the teacher's heart-the place where intellect, emotion, and spirit converge in the human self. Good teachers weave a life-giving web between themselves, their subjects, and their students, helping their students learn how to weave a web for themselves.