Stories of the Courage to Teach

WISE STORIES TO HONOR AND ENCOURAGE THE HEARTS OF TEACHERS "A heartwarming collection of essays about the doubts, passions, insecurities, and life-changing moments of teachers." -American School Board Journal "Our history books are filled with examples of the efforts of committed education employees who helped to make this country what it is today. Stories of the Courage to Teach challenges today's teachers to see themselves not only as school employees, dedicated to serving children, but as leaders in their schools and communities." -Bob Chase, president, National Education Association "It's the worst-kept secret in education: the passionate and talented teacher makes more of a difference than any school policy. Yet for all the ink spilled over school reform, little gets written about what makes a great teacher tick. Stories of the Courage to Teach . . . [by Sam Intrator] bucks this trend by looking into the hearts of twenty-five effective teachers, knitting together their first-person narratives with his own ideas about great teaching." -New York Times "The teachers featured in this anthology have all, at various junctures, been on the verge of exhaustion, and the book is, in many ways, a sustained meditation on how they've sought to regain their emotional and spiritual strength." -Teacher Magazine "Stories of the Courage to Teach . . . honors teachers who struggle to rekindle their passion for teaching." -Christian Science Monitor

Gratitudes xi Foreword: Listening to Teachers xvii Parker J. Palmer Introduction: Honoring the Teacher’s Heart xxv Sam M. Intrator I Turning Inward: Sustaining Our Own Hearts 1 Speaking from the Heart 6 Amy Symons This Is Where Teaching Gets Real 12 Jim Burke Teaching Had Become an Ordinary Job 18 John Rockne An Experiment with Truth: One Teacher’s Path 28 Leslie Young Doing Small Things with Great Love 34 Mary Alice Scott Despair and Love in Teaching 42 Daniel P. Liston Sam Scheer: Coming to Terms with a Lifetime of Teaching 54 Rosetta Marantz Cohen Adult Conversations About Unasked Questions: Teaching for Educational Justice 64 Sonia Nieto and Stephen Gordon II Reaching Out: Forging Relationships That Sustain Our Hearts 79 The Meaning of Life Assignment 84 Robert Kunzman Reclaiming Identity: Sharing a Teacher’s Truth 94 Kirstin Tonningsen Of Aliens and Space 100 Elizabeth Keats Flores You’re the One I Expected to Meet 108 Mary Rose O’Reilley Arriving Where I Started: Rediscovering the Newness 116 Susan Etheredge Feeling, Thinking, and Acting for Change 126 Catalina Rios Finding the Courage to Be Seventeen in Forty-Four-Year-Old Skin 132 Lori Fulton Adversity as Ally 140 Rachael Kessler III Making Change: Reforms That Honor the Teacher’s Heart 153 So Sweet It Made Me Jingled: Offering My Own Truth Within the System 158 Clayton Stromberger The Risk of Teaching and Learning Differently 178 Katherine Kennedy Lift Every Voice 192 Chip Wood Teaching Excellence and the Inner Life of a Faculty 202 Robert G. Kraft Journey into the Wilderness: A Teacher-Researcher Group’s Retreat 218 Kelly Chandler-Olcott Teachers-to-Be Learning from Students-Who-Are: Reconfiguring Undergraduate Teacher Preparation 230 Alison Cook-Sather Honor the People; It’s the Leader’s Work 242 David Hagstrom From Charity to Justice: Toward a Theology of Urban School Reform 254 Linda C. Powell Toward a Leadership of Peace for the Twenty-First-Century Academy 268 Diana Chapman Walsh IV Rejuvenating Heart: The Courage to Teach Program 279 Courage to Teach: A Retreat Program of Personal and Professional Renewal for Educators 282 Marcy Jackson and Rick Jackson Afterword: What I Heard Them Say 309 Parker J. Palmer Resources That Honor and Sustain the Teacher’s Heart 319 Compiled by Helen Lee The Editor 323 Center for Courage & Renewal 325 Index 327