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Two books are mandatory reading for educators coming up in the American system. One is Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed, and the other is Parker J. Palmer's The Courage to Teach.Pondering Parker J. Palmer
Parker J. Palmer’s classic book, The Courage to Teach reminds me of Rollo May’s The Courage to Create. Their titles echo, but it is the wellspring of deep emotion both writers tap into while approaching their creation/teaching crafts that gives their voices resolve. I see their insights into creativity and teaching as inseparable phenomena linked by the necessities inherent in our peculiar humanness, and I believe that is the foundation of both writers’ visions. Here, briefly, is an interpretive reaction to Palmer:
With a great abstraction of emotion and a sense of awe, a functional spirituality/creativity grasps us at the onset of our lives. A baby forms deep and secure attachments to its mother within weeks of birth. It recognizes itself in a mirror by age two and begins to distinguish its otherness while setting out to explore the world of its senses—a highly creative endeavor. Early on, new stimuli create new sensations and overwhelming responses that come from the child’s prepackaged biological instincts.
Just as suddenly, the world intrudes on the child. If the child is fortunate, its mother and father immediately begin to expose it to elements of the world’s beauty—and guide it from darkness. They talk to the child with reason and love in their voices and share with it the great mystery of being, as they demonstrate the world’s goodness.
Then the child enters preschool under the care and diligence of secondary caregivers and teachers who value that child’s life as an individual. They will nourish it as a cause—for that is what a child represents, a cause that is greater than anything else on Earth.
Nothing else can touch the child’s importance—its innate creativity. For it is only through our recognition of the child’s sacredness that we can expect to witness advances in human culture.
A great segment of society, unfortunately, does not recognize the sacredness of the individual child, who must be taught to manage in the world. When parents do not recognize the sacredness of the child, and respond through their conditioned darkness to the child’s existence in harmful ways, we recognize the effects of poor parenting. Most often, poor parenting is linked to real poverty and stress.
Should we as a society be capable of recognizing the damage poor governance, through its conditioned darkness and impoverishment, inflicts on the sacred child? We should, but that is not where we are. Instead we allow our leadership to help design an impoverished culture by neglecting the sacred child.
Now, a great segment of society might argue that our leaders have done all they can to embrace the sacred child, given the limited dollars available to aid the poorly parented, and the stressed out government. If this argument is not rejected out-of-hand we are indeed doomed. If we do not elevate the sacred child to its rightful place in our culture—along with the sacred environment—there will soon be no point in continuing this cosmic exercise.
When poor governance damages culture, it is our responsibility in a democracy to repair the government. When poor governance promotes poor parenting by a systematic refusal to pay anything into culture, it is our responsibility to rethink the fiscal aspects of our present system.
In our present system of corporate socialism, those whom determine fiscal soundness pay lip-service to many groups and special interests. Rarely do they invest in those groups and interests, unless a payback in hard currency is foreseeable.
Corrupt reciprocal relationships exist between governments and business interests in most cultures. Dictatorships make an art of it, but crumbling democracies are just as at risk. It is not an accident that the wealth of our nation is funneling into fewer and fewer troughs. It is deliberate theft.
When it is too late to save the suicide victim, we often lament that we did not see the distress that led up to the act. We cannot afford to let our lamentations rule better sense when the sacred child is at risk.
Parker J. Palmer’s classic book, The Courage to Teach reminds me of Rollo May’s The Courage to Create. Their titles echo, but it is the wellspring of deep emotion both writers tap into while approaching their creation/teaching crafts that gives their voices resolve. I see their insights into creativity and teaching as inseparable phenomena linked by the necessities inherent in our peculiar humanness, and I believe that is the foundation of both writers’ visions. Here, briefly, is an interpretive reaction to Palmer:
With a great abstraction of emotion and a sense of awe, a functional spirituality/creativity grasps us at the onset of our lives. A baby forms deep and secure attachments to its mother within weeks of birth. It recognizes itself in a mirror by age two and begins to distinguish its otherness while setting out to explore the world of its senses—a highly creative endeavor. Early on, new stimuli create new sensations and overwhelming responses that come from the child’s prepackaged biological instincts.
Just as suddenly, the world intrudes on the child. If the child is fortunate, its mother and father immediately begin to expose it to elements of the world’s beauty—and guide it from darkness. They talk to the child with reason and love in their voices and share with it the great mystery of being, as they demonstrate the world’s goodness.
Then the child enters preschool under the care and diligence of secondary caregivers and teachers who value that child’s life as an individual. They will nourish it as a cause—for that is what a child represents, a cause that is greater than anything else on Earth.
Nothing else can touch the child’s importance—its innate creativity. For it is only through our recognition of the child’s sacredness that we can expect to witness advances in human culture.
A great segment of society, unfortunately, does not recognize the sacredness of the individual child, who must be taught to manage in the world. When parents do not recognize the sacredness of the child, and respond through their conditioned darkness to the child’s existence in harmful ways, we recognize the effects of poor parenting. Most often, poor parenting is linked to real poverty and stress.
Should we as a society be capable of recognizing the damage poor governance, through its conditioned darkness and impoverishment, inflicts on the sacred child? We should, but that is not where we are. Instead we allow our leadership to help design an impoverished culture by neglecting the sacred child.
Now, a great segment of society might argue that our leaders have done all they can to embrace the sacred child, given the limited dollars available to aid the poorly parented, and the stressed out government. If this argument is not rejected out-of-hand we are indeed doomed. If we do not elevate the sacred child to its rightful place in our culture—along with the sacred environment—there will soon be no point in continuing this cosmic exercise.
When poor governance damages culture, it is our responsibility in a democracy to repair the government. When poor governance promotes poor parenting by a systematic refusal to pay anything into culture, it is our responsibility to rethink the fiscal aspects of our present system.
In our present system of corporate socialism, those whom determine fiscal soundness pay lip-service to many groups and special interests. Rarely do they invest in those groups and interests, unless a payback in hard currency is foreseeable.
Corrupt reciprocal relationships exist between governments and business interests in most cultures. Dictatorships make an art of it, but crumbling democracies are just as at risk. It is not an accident that the wealth of our nation is funneling into fewer and fewer troughs. It is deliberate theft.
When it is too late to save the suicide victim, we often lament that we did not see the distress that led up to the act. We cannot afford to let our lamentations rule better sense when the sacred child is at risk.
TS
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