I took away this lesson from Palmer’s book The Courage to Teach: I need to get up earlier. If I continue to sleep in I will have no time to save the world :].
This is partially me trying not to get to serious in the face of what is generally sensed to be an “Education Crisis.” It is partially a tongue in cheek response to Palmer’s final chapter calling individuals to initiate social change. But it is mostly me being honest with myself.
I have been neglecting what I like to call my interior life, and if the point of this book is to explore what Palmer calls “the inner landscape of a teacher’s life,” than I have a responsibility to actually have a landscape to explore. Nurturing that landscape takes time, but only if I spend the time cultivating it will I really have the privilege of teaching subjectively. If I do not develop myself to be an interesting, insightful person who reads and thinks and writes regularly, then I will be left standing with only a bag of techniques and an insufficient repertoire. This book has been for me a call to action to attack my must read list, my must-write list and set experiential goals for myself so that I have the option of passing those experiences on to my students.
Wow, you are much more motivated than I am! I love that this book is calling you to action to set experimential goals. We should experiment to continue figuring out who we are and what works for us in the classroom. Good luck!
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