Put the Heart Before the Course

This is my first post for a while -- I spent the last week in Dallas at the National Staff Development Council Conference, immersed in professional learning with people of like mind on topics about which we are passionate. One of the reasons I went was to hear again one of the finest teachers I know, Parker Palmer. Parker's message resonates with those of us for whom teaching is a calling, a vocation, not simply a job. He speaks from roots in his tradition, that of the Religious Society of Friends, the Quakers, and its testimonies. The Quaker testimonies are based on the belief that there is that of God in everyone and that "worship and social action, the sacred and the secular, have no dividing walls between them." (retrieved from http://www.quaker.org.uk) This divinely inspired view of society grows from silent worship that waits on God and listens for Guidance, a mystical and practical approach to life.

Parker spoke to over four thousand people in Dallas, in a cavernous conference center surrounded by four huge screens that projected the speaker's image. He began his keynote by asking us all to join him in the Silence. I slipped into it, feeling enveloped by Love and full of admiration for this man who audaciously said to those to whom he was to speak, there is Someone else to whom you should first listen. The whole crowd quieted, and sat for many moments without speech.

Parker began quietly, naming our teachers as "culture heroes," those who are taking on all of the ills of society and doing it with heart and courage and little support. And, he spoke about how our government has increasingly foisted on schools mechanical solutions to complex problems, further taxing and demoralizing our teachers. Parker pointed out, as he says in one of his books, that: "Teacher-bashing has become a popular sport. . . . Teachers make an easy target, for they are such a common species and so powerless to strike back. We blame teachers for being unable to cure social ills that no one knows how to treat; we insist that they instantly adopt whatever "solution" has most recently been concocted by our national panacea machine; and in the process, we demoralize, even paralyze, the very teachers who could help us find our way." He spoke long and eloquently about how we need a revolution in America, a revolution that en-courages all of us in schools to share our hearts and souls with one another, to rise above the mandates and commit ourselves to the Light of learning and teaching. None of us can truly teach or learn unless we bring our whole selves to the process, and only then will we fulfill the promise of our society.

"I lift my lamp beside the golden door," says the Statue of Liberty. The golden door to the promised land is free quality public education for all. How can we, today and every day, honor and challenge ourselves and our colleagues to fulfill this promise by improving our art as well as our craft?