Why Was The Courage To Teach Program Developed?

Anyone who has a child in school realizes that the school is only as good as the teacher your daughter or son has that year. Any parent can tell you that a tired, dispirited teacher can do harm to your child's love of learning and motivation to succeed. We depend on teachers to educate our children under increasingly demanding conditions. While teachers enter the field with a great love for their students and a passion for what they teach, it is not uncommon for them to "lose heart" and become discouraged with their vocations. This program was established to create a place where teachers can rediscover their identity and integrity as teachers. It is based on the belief that each of us has an "inner teacher"; given the right conditions, we can find answers to our challenges from within ourselves. By inviting teachers to this important inner work, in the community of colleagues, this self-reflection can bring new strength, and revitalize the teachers who work so hard for our children. In this time of teacher shortages, this program offers renewal to education's most important resource, the teacher. We have had a number of our participants say that without this program they would have left teaching.

Parker Palmer states in The Courage to Teach, "We teach who we are." The intense, demanding work of education can distract us from what is most important in our work, from our values, and from knowing our students and ourselves. In other words, it is easy to get lost and disheartened in this work. Palmer points out, "Teaching, like any truly human activity, emerges from one's inwardness, for better or worse. As I teach, I project the condition of my soul onto my students, my subject, and our way of being together. The entanglements I experience in the classroom are often no more or less than the convolutions of my inner life. Viewed from this angle, teaching holds a mirror to the soul. If I am willing to look in that mirror, and not run from what I see, I have a chance to gain self-knowledge - - - and knowing myself is as crucial to good teaching as knowing my students and my subject."