Re-Reading

I first read Parker Palmer's The Courage to Teach a few years ago at a conference--the conference was boring but they had a nice bookstore, so I made good use of my time. I'm teaching Studies in Education next month and this is one of the required texts. It has received mixed reviews from the student in the past for being too "touchy-feely". I can appreciate those comments, as sometimes Palmer gets a little too sensitive for me, too, but I really appreciate his passion for having authenticity in your teaching. When I was in the classroom I felt very fractured--there was a disconnect between what I loved doing and what I was having to do in the classroom to meet state standards. Palmer has the guts to come out and say that it damages our students, but it's just as damaging to our teachers.

I believe I will open my first class in a few weeks with this Palmer quotation:

"When I do not know myself, I cannot know who my students are. I will see them through a glass darkly, in the shadows of my own unexamined life—and when I cannot see them clearly, I cannot teach them well."

Good To Know

"Here is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you've been to college."

--Kurt Vonnegut (1922 - 2007), A Man without a Country

Not A Bad Idea

"Never be entirely idle; but either be reading, or writing, or praying or meditating or endeavoring something for the public good."

--Thomas a Kempis

The Secret Life of Bees

Just a few goodies from an excellent book:

"Every human being on the face of the earth has a steel plate in his head, but if you lie down now and then and get still as you can, it will slide open like elevator doors, letting in all the secret thoughts that have been standing around so patiently, pushing the button for a ride to the top. The real troubles in life happen when those hidden doors stay closed for too long. But that's just my opinion." (p. 170)

"'I wish you could've seen the Daughters of Mary the first time they laid eyes on this label. You know why? Because when they looked at her, it occurred to them for the first time in their lives that what's divine can come in dark skin. You see, everybody needs a God who looks like them, Lily." (p. 141)