This week Parker Palmer presents
his approach to teaching in his book called The
Courage to Teach. Palmer takes a
very personal approach that deserves a very personal response. In the opening chapter Palmer puts forth a metaphor
for the positioning he is describing and exploring throughout the rest of the
book. It reads “But a good teacher must
stand where personal and public meet, dealing with the thundering flow of
traffic at an intersection where ‘weaving a web of connectedness’ feels more like
crossing a freeway on foot.” The web he
is referring to are the strings that hold the tension of balance between his paradoxes. As a new teacher I am most interested in the balance
between holding an open hand in order to become vulnerable in the classroom to
allow the students to learn through you, not just from you, while still somehow
maintaining a professionalism that calls forth respect from the students.
Every
teacher has to decide how they will allow immediacy into their own pedagogy, or
if they do not decide it will become so without thought or reflection and may
do more harm than any good it could have done.
Palmer calls on teachers to lay themselves bare before the class and let
the students to use that vulnerability as a spring board into transformative
learning. What Palmer is trying to sway
the teaching profession away from is the simple, impersonal, banking method of
teaching that requires no reflection or internalization of the information that
is being downloaded in order to be regurgitated in a testing format. Palmers
answer to this is to spring forth into life and help students to become
invested in the learning process.
The
process of allowing the students to invest themselves requires the teacher to
model this investment for their students; not just in the subject, but in the
class as well. This seems like a great
philosophy: my hope for my teaching, for my students, is that they will be able
to get something more out of the class than a letter grade, that they will truly
learn. However what Palmer leaves unanswered
is the practice of how this occurs. No
path is laid out or steps given to set out on this journey. He simply lays out the end product of what it
should look like. Perhaps with more
practice I will be able to see a teaching style that I would like to crease
into my own pedagogy and be able to do just that without guidance, but for now,
as a struggling novice, I can only look at them and hope that one day my
teaching will find that balance.
What is
it that allows a teacher to be professionally vulnerable? Is it the understanding
of the subject, themselves, or their students? Palmer would argue that it is
all three. If we (teachers) understand
the subject, or at the very least, know how to attain that understanding, and if
we can only learn of our students as they open themselves up, the audience is
left with the final question: How can we know ourselves? In order to become vulnerable we must have an
understanding of ourselves, but we also must become vulnerable to understand. As beautiful as that sounds, how is that
possible? Is it that we should take it
first out of the classroom in order to start?
Palmer
says that techniques are provided for the new teachers into the real (by real he
means experience and vulnerability) teacher arrives. Surely there must be a way to start to evoke
this “real” teacher. I am left with
questions, quite possibly by design. How
can I implement this? How can my fellow teachers implement this? How do I check
myself to make sure I do not cross over too far one way or the other? How do I stay vulnerable even in the midst of
great suffering? Will my students be able to see that even through what I am doing
goes against the norms, it is good and respectable? Will they be able to go
there with me, or will I be left alone and exposed? Will this very personal connection bring them
into higher learning or will it push them away?
This book could not have come to me
at a better time. It just so happens
that the same questions that Palmer raises are the same questions I am asking
about myself and my own teaching. In
this questioning I started drowning in self doubt and fear, and even though I
am not left with any answers, Palmer does give me hope that they are out there. As
you, teachers and non-teachers alike, look to these questions and begin winding
your way through them (on purpose or not), what are you finding as answers, or
options for those of us who are struggling?
~A.R.G.
I would argue that Palmer is calling for passion in the classroom over vulnerability. He writes about the many different kinds of "good" teachers in the classroom and emphasizes the point that every one of them brings a different style and pedagogy to the table, but what they all have in common is a shared passion for their students, their subject, and themselves.
ReplyDeleteIn reading Palmer, I had trouble digesting most of his arguments, especially his statement of losing "the fear [he feels] when [he is] not in life-giving communion with the young" (p. 50). I felt as if I needed to cross myself after having read that passage.
I would ask why you feel the need to present vulnerability in front of the classroom? I agree that vulnerability has its place in being immediate in a small group or individually, but should we be so vulnerable that we even come close to not being professional in a large classroom setting?
A.R.G.,
ReplyDeleteI can completely identify with some of the questions you faced after reading this book. While Palmer does present a feel-good approach toward teaching, I felt like I had lost some of the direction I may have gained during my “teaching career.” Not to sound crass, but Palmer’s approach to good teaching parallels Justice Potter Stewart’s approach to obscenity: “I know it when I see it.”
One thing that Palmer does make quite clear is the emphasis on community in teaching. He faced the reality of uncertainty from his transition from mentee to mentor, as well as he had to discover his own teaching voice. We are fortunate to find ourselves in this position, where we are able to find our own teaching voice in a setting that values collaboration.
-C.H.
While I appreciated Palmer's approach to engaging students I was also left wanting more direction. As someone that is not comfortable with a high level of self-disclosure in the classroom, how can I access that level community in my classroom? Would Palmer suggest that I let go of my own privacy issues? How can I deal with the discomfort that would cause me?
ReplyDeleteI don't think Palmer would advocate crossing into territory that makes you uncomfortable, because that wouldn't be the "style" that works for you, but you can tap into passion and heart in other ways, like in the enthusiasm for teaching, and wanting your students to succeed, and in the questions that you ask of the subject matter. Our questions are another way to reflect our personal selves--what interests us and what we feel the need to interrogate.
ReplyDeleteAnd we are vulnerable just in putting our hopes into a student to do well... I think Parker would say that to open up the pathway between the hearts of teacher and student necessarily (at least partially) happens when we put our faith in/get our hopes up for them to do well, and be interested, because teaching/learning are so important to us--and that's why we take it personally when they do not. That is a vulnerability of the invested teacher, and it can suggest a positive potential.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I am glad Palmer does not lay out a foundation for my teaching style.
ReplyDeleteLet's not suffer another form of oppression here. Offering those ideas is exactly what Freire tells us to engage in with our students! Offer ideas and allowing the receiver to engage in exploring those ideas for themselves. Here, I think Palmer offers a great platform for possibilities in the classroom.
For example, Palmer argued that "...teachers posses the power to create conditions that can help students learn a great deal--or keep them from learning much at all," I think he specifically calls out teachers to think about their roles as teachers, literally (p. 7). What do we have the power to do? Teach courageously, right?! So I think that understanding that this level power does not necessarily mean that we should all create these community environments the same way and demand/expect that they will be created a certain way, but understanding that creating them is essentially to elements of successful teaching.
Creating our own levels of exploration in the classroom and finding which ways work for US.