Universities 21 is published by the University Professionals
of Illinois
Mitch Vogel,
President
Mary Ann Schwartz
Editor
The Courage to Change
Bonnie D. Irwin, Associate Professor of English
Eastern Illinois University
Teaching, as Parker Palmer defines it, does indeed require courage. Many have the ability to walk into a classroom, lecture or lead a discussion, and evaluate whether or not students have learned sufficiently to pass the course. Palmer does not, however, define this as true teaching. The true teacher must face her fears, know herself, and inspire her students to face their own fears and develop a passion for the transcendence of knowledge. Good teaching, courageous teaching, does not depend on a set of techniques, however well researched and tested, nor is it accessible only to certain personality types. Delving deep into our own fears and opening up the "fearful hearts" of our students requires courage, especially when we do not know what we will find. In the 21st century, as the landscape around us seems to be changing daily--Must I use the web in my teaching? Is my subject still relevant? Is the attention span of my students shrinking? Will tenure survive the corporatization of the University?--it has become more important than ever to recognize our own fears and concerns as we approach our teaching.
If we look at the teacher from Palmer's perspective, we can safely say that the inner teacher probably will not change too much in the new century. The techniques and conditions of teaching will change, as they have changed over time, but teaching, the basis of our communication with each other and our students, will not. Walter Ong, In Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word (Methuen, 1982) argues that literacy restructured consciousness. Writing, after all, is a technology itself. Writing and then printing changed the very ways people thought, but they did not change what people thought or why they chose to think about things. Non-literate ancient cultures wondered how and why the sun rose and set; later developments of science, enabled by literacy, came closer to answering those questions, but did not obviate the questions themselves. Modern technology allows us to get even closer to the sun, model its composition and speculate on its origins, but it does not change the emotional response we have to a beautiful sunset or our complete dependence upon the sun as the basis of our organization of time. Teachers will thus continue to be passionate about their subjects and feel the need to instill that passion in students, no matter what the means.
Some of us lecture, some of us organize small study groups, and some of us use and more of us will use the Internet as a way of teaching and communicating our knowledge of and passion for our subjects. Palmer contends that technique does not guarantee quality. The teacher must find his or her inner self to determine which of the many techniques available will facilitate communication with students. A teacher meeting face-to-face with a small group of students has been the primary mode of education for three thousand years. Can we expect the Internet to eliminate that means? No. Can we expect that the Internet will mean that fewer students will opt for this traditional style of education? Yes. Again it comes down to the people we are. I cannot see myself, as one who draws energy and enthusiasm from a live audience to facilitate my teaching, as successful in a completely electronic teaching environment. But do I reach this conclusion out or fear of technology or a true knowledge of myself? Palmer's book forces me to go back and consider the question once again.
Palmer advocates good teaching through knowing in community, teaching in community, and learning in community, and certainly, for some, that community will be located in cyberspace. For others, even those who now have grown up with computers as part of their daily lives, face to face human contact will be essential for community to flourish. The emotional and spiritual components that are central to passionate and caring teaching will survive in either environment, providing the inhabitants of that environment recognize their inherent value.
In the final chapter of The Courage to Teach, Parker Palmer suggests how we might develop those "communities of truth" essential to teaching and learning, and how we might re-establish knowledge as the center of our attention, thereby reawakening our passion for teaching and awakening in our students a passion for learning. He suggests that educational reform may follow the path of other social movements: when enough individuals truly desire change and begin to communicate this desire with other like-minded people, we will begin to see our obstacles "not as a source of defeat but as a source of energy." It is too easy for us to claim that our institutions or our students hold us back and throw up our hands in despair. Just as good teaching requires courage, education reform does as well. Hamid has outlined the four steps in his review; I would like to follow up with suggestions of how UPI and its members might contribute to educational reform, following Parker's outline.
Step 1. Decide to "live divided no more." This is an individual decision and effort. In order to reform education, we must realize that what we do is not all of who we are. In the process of the inner exploration he advocates, Palmer writes about "naming and claiming one's identity and integrity" (168). This step entails finding the center of one's identity separate from our institutions and the demands they place on us. Comparing education reform to civil rights movements, Palmer identifies the liberating insight gained by those who live an undivided life: "no punishment anyone lays on you could possibly be worse than the punishment you lay on yourself by conspiring in your own diminishment" (171). To achieve this insight, we must recall those things that lead us into teaching and scholarship to begin with. Through our UPI chapters and local, we can conduct workshops where we discuss teaching, the transcendence of knowledge, and our personal relationships to these passions.
Step 2. "Undivided" individuals begin to find each other and form "communities of congruence." Here UPI, with its organizational structure of chapters and the local, can facilitate inter- and intramural communication between and among faculty on the various campus by sponsoring list-servs, web-based chat rooms and face-to-face discussion. Ideally, we would all have nurturing, constructive teaching and learning centers on our campuses, but until that time, we can network ourselves. We can also extend ourselves to other higher education locals in the AFT. If we really want to lead the charge for quality in education and appropriate compensation for teaching, we need to commit to improving ourselves as teachers and improving the education our students receive in every class, in every school, and on every campus, independent of any institutional or legislative mandates.
Step 3. "Communities of truth" convert their private concerns into public ones by "going public." UPI and the AFT have publicly advocated quality teacher preparation and standards for distance education initiatives over the last couple of years. We can extend this kind of movement to all other areas of education that concern us. We are teachers, and we need to find the means to communicate with other "students"--parents, industry leaders, and legislators--with the same passion and commitment with which we approach our students on campus. We must have the courage to face public scrutiny and critique, and by taking our cause public we can find allies where we have traditionally seen enemies. UPI and AFT, with a larger voice than any individual member, can help in this cause. Going public, according to Palmer, is perhaps the greatest test of a movement, one that challenges the integrity of every participant. With the strength that comes from individual integrity--our knowledge of ourselves as teachers and scholars apart from any institutional title--and our community of congruence--UPI members working together through chapters and local--we can face public scrutiny fearless and better communicate our mission and values as educators.
Step 4. Creating a system of "alternative rewards." If we realize that the greatest punishment that we can suffer is that of losing our selves, then we become liberated from the constraints that the institutional culture places upon us. Here we must determine what truly fulfills us and makes us good teachers. The rewards are often intrinsic. Once we identify them, however, through UPI we can put a system of alternate rewards into place that center on what we value as teachers and scholars. Grants can help us establish teaching and learning centers on our own terms. For the divided self, these alternative rewards may pale beside issues of salary, promotion, and tenure, but as in any social movement, when we are able to identify the greater rewards and harsher punishments that the degradation of our integrity causes, we may escape the fetters that bind us to our institutions and their often stultifying organizational culture. "When that happens, institutions often awaken to the need for change, lest the action go elsewhere and they [institutions] become irrelevant to people's lives" (180).
(Re)discovering our integrity, facing our fears, empowering ourselves as teachers and scholars, breaking our dependence upon our institutions to initiate change or as an excuse not to initiate change ourselves--all of these require great courage and determination, but the rewards are potentially life-changing. I've never seen myself as much of a risk-taker, but I think I'm now ready to take the first step. Are you?