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Tag Archives: Parker Palmer
“When we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey.”
When I was deciding whether to come back to teach one more year, I realized that the part that I like best is not giving information, it’s getting questions – especially questions that I have never explored before with students. … Continue reading
Posted in Pedagogy
Tagged Courage to Teach, Parker Palmer, Teaching with Heart, Wendell Berry
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Best of 2021: Book Prescriptions
As we finish this difficult year, I’m wondering how I can thank my readers for sticking with me. Blogs can’t offer hugs, a place to go scream, a few extra hours of sleep, or stiff drinks. However, I can prescribe … Continue reading
“We must learn to hold the tension between the reality of the moment and the possibility that something better might emerge.”
Sometimes, it looks like we have two choices: up or down, agree or disagree, fight or flight. There is a third way, though, Parker Palmer reminds us. Instead of trying to resolve every tension quickly, consider “allowing opposing ideas to … Continue reading
Posted in non-fiction
Tagged A Hidden Wholeness, Parker Palmer, tension, third way, Undivided life
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“Whether teaching or writing, what I really am doing is shepherding revelation; I am the midwife to epiphany.”
It’s the dead of winter, which is a hard time to begin something new. And yet, that’s exactly what those of us who are preparing to start a new semester must do. That’s why this is a perfect time for … Continue reading
Posted in Pedagogy, poetry
Tagged epiphanies, Parker Palmer, shepherding revelations, Taylor Mali, Teaching with Heart
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“From elementary through graduate school, we receive little guidance for the inner journey . . .”
Parker Palmer continues, “even though Socrates – the patron saint of education – regarded self-examination as key to a life worth living.” I couldn’t agree more. Because Parker Palmer has been a steady advocate of doing the “silent, solitary process … Continue reading
Posted in non-fiction
Tagged brittle hearts, On the Brink of Everything, Parker Palmer, Reflection, Socrates
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“The courage to teach is the courage to keep one’s heart open . . .”
The school year has just started, and I’ve begun to meet students who seem to have everything going for them and other students who seem to have the deck stacked against them. At this point, I don’t know how any … Continue reading
Posted in Pedagogy
Tagged Courage to Teach, emotion and spirit, Intellect, Parker Palmer
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“I could feel nothing except the burden of my own life and the exhaustion, the apparent futility, of trying to sustain it.”
This week, the Centers for Disease Control released a report that said that suicide rates in the United States have risen nearly 30% since 1999. With the issue of mental health in the news so frequently lately, I am looking … Continue reading
Posted in non-fiction
Tagged depression, Let Your Life Speak, Parker Palmer, responding to pain
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“The deepest vocational question is not ‘What ought I to do with my life?’”
Rather, Parker Palmer writes, the more important questions are: “What am I? What is my nature?” These questions are more important because they require more self-knowledge. This knowledge must include, Palmer writes, acknowledgement of our limits and our potentials. Of … Continue reading
“Listening and questioning are the basis for positive classroom interactions that can in turn shape meaningful collaboration, which can then build a culture of thinking.”
To increase learning in the classroom, don’t focus on curriculum or using new “tips and tricks” for instruction. Instead, Ron Ritchhart, a researcher at Harvard’s graduate school of education, writes that we should change the “culture” of our classrooms by … Continue reading
“Now I become myself.”
Parker Palmer quotes this wonderful opening line from a poem by May Sarton in his collection of autobiographical essays Let Your Life Speak. For him, the process of “becoming” meant taking many wrong turns before finding the right ones. People … Continue reading