Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning
Fall 1999, pp. 138-141
Book Review
The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner
Landscape of the Teacher's Life.
Palmer Parker
San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1998
In working with student teachers, we have often
said, "We teach who we are. What does that mean to
you?" On an intellectual level, most students can
answer the question. But at a deeper level, at a spiritual level, what are we asking? Palmer opens with
this question in his introduction, '"Teaching from
Within," and eloquently sets the stage for his reader
to follow interwoven paths, which he identifies as
intellectual, spiritual and emotional, on a journey
toward answering the fundamental question, "Who
is the self that teaches?"
Those familiar with Palmer's previous books and
articles, or have heard him speak, will recognize
that question as wholly consistent with his reflective approach to understanding what he names, on
the first page, as "the finest work I know" - the
work of teaching. We have come to expect from
Palmer an inspiring vision of what teaching and
learning can be, a thoughtful critique of both the
positive and negative influences of the structures
and culture of the academy and its disciplines on
knowing, teaching and learning, and a very open
sharing of self. In this, his latest book, he delivers
to that expectation and the reader finds familiar
echoes and themes. Here is an integration of previously articulated thinking: a critique of our overreliance on "thinking things apart," the importance
of the organic whole, of connection and community, the creative tension of paradox in teaching and
learning, and the need for safe space in which
teachers can talk about their teaching. Palmer takes
us further, however, particularly in an exploration
of the fears that debilitate us, as well as the challenges and possibilities inherent in creating the
interpersonal and communal teaching-learning
relationship. Unless one is dead to his or her own
inner self, this book reaches into the protected
recesses of the reader's private recognition of "the
self that teaches" and urges us to bring what we
find into shared light. In his introduction he challenges the reader:
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 good chance to
gain self-knowledge - and knowing myself is
as crucial to good teaching as knowing my students and my subject. (p. 37)
Palmer names our demons, in a sense, as well as our
passions and joys. In doing so, he opens the door to
a welcome breeze.
Readers will find that while there is a structure to
the book (which Palmer helpfully reminds us of at
the beginnings of key transition chapters), the
anchoring, key ideas flow back and forth across
chapters. This organic approach is true to Palmer's
articulated beliefs about how we know. It allows
for changing the angle of view or zooming in for
more specific focus while maintaining the complex
integrated picture. Structurally, we move from a
tight focus on "the inner landscape" of a teacher's
life, to an exploration in the middle chapters of
what it means to actually create the kind of classroom (and larger) community necessary for good
teaching and learning, to a final focus on how we
as teachers can talk about what we do and make
change happen. While Palmer is not, then, writing
specifically about service-learning, the confluence
of Palmer's paths leads service-learning practitioners toward a new perspective from which to view
service-learning and the selves we bring to it. In
this review, the intent is not to cover all, but to
highlight several of his key explorations.
Palmer's exploration of the intellectual path travels deep within the soul of academic culture, for it
runs head-on into the objective way of knowing
that dominates the academy. While Palmer does not
(as some would believe) dismiss the need for analytical and objective thinking, he argues that the
price paid for the "purity" of objectivism is the
diminution of the "capacity for connectedness" by
distancing the knower from his or her subject (p.
11). The academic tendency to "think the world
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