Inner Landscapes and Outer Realities

The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher's Life
by Parker Palmer

This book was an end of year gift June 2006 given to our under performing elementary school staff in Oxnard,California in the Hueneme School District.

I have invested 24 years trying to bring to my job the attributes and kinds of integrity strands the book calls for in teaching children. In my career I've been given one book on what we're here to do (this is it). I've given many books to staff, principals, and friends on our school site with the hope we might enter into more dialog on public education and our role in educational leadership.

That kind of discussion often feels risky to leadership; it has yet to occur enough at Hathaway, my site. It's pretty top down in the real world. And so the gift of a book oriented towards an "internal reflection on teaching" is a very good sign in a rather dark time for educators of children in poverty. Teachers need these starting points to think about what we do.

The first thought I had receiving this book, besides thank you, was that I "could" read it. We had been told by our principal that it would probably be too hard and that we should "stick with the text." I suspect that as a staff we are not viewed as desiring to synthesize, unpack and deconstruct texts on education in our daily lives. That perception is not really a good fit, the staff is very able to read to meaning.

My staff is also teaching in very difficult times, with difficult language, societal issues falling on their shoulders, with difficult issues confronting them from NCLB and the requirement that all students produce results, and most teachers lack connection often times to their student successes. I find it comparable to the Slow Train Coming in Dylan, but I am the artist of our group and often the dreamer. This set of realities and difficulties everyday might well cause a ho-hum at such a book at first..

The second thought I had after a first read was how the text might be reshaped considerably by a person who actually taught in public schools for 25 years and who has encountered legislated reform within their walls and what that has done to affect the kinds of teacher empowerment recommended here. Women are 70% at least of our workforce in elementary and we need writers from our ranks to speak to the realities of how teaching "works" inside the organizational structures. It hit me right away, as much as I loved the words, it was written outside of the role of an elementary teacher. And in a male voice. Which does not disconnect to meaning or importance. It is however something I think might be shaded differently in the hands of the practitioner.

At this point in my career, I need inspirational works. I look for stories of success and the "why we are here". In part this is to offset the difficulties teaching within failures of systems, within peer groups that act out of self interest and self involvement way too much of the time, and in times where it's hard to drag a leader into the position to lead--much less have them lead towards educational improvement and use reform to wisely shape the school.

We seem to lose our leadership every three years. There are many fine and inspirational points made and many lecture circuit head nodding happy characterizations to be gleaned.There is much to help you feel less alone in a teaching world often a Catch-22, reset in a CA. public ed setting. Teaching in my world knowing daily you are asked to do that which is not exactly the right thing and told you are not the right person to do the thinking in the model about what might work better. In schools facing mandates and reforms much is done imperfectly.

The text talks to courage and it is also possible that fundamental educational shifts to disadvantage the poor guised as Standards based education have been closing the mouths of teachers fearing rightly the times we are in now. To my mind it is not courage we lack, or character, we lack individuals who fundamentally are able to understand the bigger picture and who can be our Rosa Parks. Hiring is not looking for individuals of quality, inspiration, character to the degree the job requires. One need only apply for teacher work in Orange County to encounter a Gallup survey to initially screen applicants in which "I plan to write a book" is one of the quickie disqualifiers to keep on going towards getting in to an interview, irregardless of your ability or background. So teachers right from the get go who are there to "make a difference" may well not be hired to do so. To understand the ground as it is right now for a teacher who might enter the field value centered around a desire to help the less fortunate.....well you may need to see what Personnel offices listen for to get through the door.So courage is just a piece of the puzzle. It takes tremendous personal integrity.

Then too, I'm watching fantastic peers early retire in droves. Escaping. We have allowed many fine teachers to be scapegoated, discouraged and be rushed out of the profession. That is a very sad note.

While I acquire an inner voice and refine teaching praxis and center on self, my capacities to explore inner landscapes, meaning and my capacity to connect and make meaning for students.... my District, as are many, are completely scripting our voice, removing my ability to make meaning, dictating what occurs today, taking literature decisions out of teacher hands and doing so to "improve instruction". I believe many use their courage to remove themselves from these choices , they leave the profession, and these kinds of fundamental issues are pretty down and dirty.

But I do appreciate a book talking to the spirit of the job I once was able to do well and once proud of being involved in doing. Public education is /was a calling of the heart.