Courage to Teach by Palmer: How to Deal With Fear

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Table of Contents

Fear in Teaching
The students
Reason for the Choice of the Chapters
Importance of the Chapters
Reflections
References

Fear in Teaching

One of the most important chapters in this book deals with fear. The author analyses how teaching can be conducted in the face of fear. According to Palmer, the quality of higher education teaching cannot be improved by endless workshops on methodology because effective teaching does not come from technique (Palmer, 2007). He claims that effective teaching is based on the quality, identity, and integrity of teachers meaning that human dimensions are more important than methodology in pedagogy. The relationship between the teacher and the student is a very important element of the teaching process according to the author, meaning that the human condition must be considered in the process of teaching. Palmer claims in this chapter that this is one of the pedagogical realms that have not been explored and there is a big challenge for the teachers to ensure that they explore the human condition in the process of teaching because there are many rewards to be reaped. Most people do not teach poorly because they do not have the mastery of content either do they underutilize their methodologies. They just let fear get an upper hand and one of the biggest enemies in education is fear because it allows ignorance to gain strength and power, thus compromising knowledge. Teachers need the courage to teach because most of them teach in the face of fear and this fear emanates from three main sources which include the students and the teachers themselves.

One of the worst fears that affect the teaching process is the fear of subjectivity where the teachers try to be objective by maintaining a safe distance. When teachers maintain a distance because they do not want eternal truths to be affected by personal bias, they run away from relational knowing. Objectivism is always driven by fear and the teachers should not be cagey about being subjective because it is the basis of relational knowing. When teachers become more objective because of their fear of subjectivity, they emphasize external facts thus relegating internal wisdom to the sidelines. According to the author, this style of teaching is the most dangerous and has wrecked generations because it creates people who know a lot about the outside world and little about their inner selves. This kind of teaching results in a generation that has technical competence but has little or no understanding of personality and life issues. The products of this kind of teaching, according to the chapter have power over the world but do not have power over themselves (Palmer, 2007). They can transform the world but they cannot transform themselves. According to the chapter, the courage to teach us all about overcoming the objectivist dimension in the teaching process because removing oneself from the real-life situations that are affecting the students does not in any way help them to discover themselves. Courageous teachers are subjective and they do not worry when personal bias creeps into their teaching methodology because this subjectivity may be less important in teaching the technical competencies, but it is very important in equipping the students with life skills. Courageous teachers always find ways of overcoming the fear of objectivity.

The students

The other vital chapter in this book deals with the teachers perception of the students. Most teachers claim that the biggest obstacle to teaching is bad students. One of the worst characteristics of a bad student is silence when questions are asked by the teacher in class. According to most teachers, silence is either a sign of indifference and hostility to the teacher or an indication that the students are brain dead. This makes the teachers devise cures that are even more dangerous than the disease. The teachers fail to understand that the silence of the students does not arise from their ignorance, cynicism, or indifference; the silence is mostly driven by fears. These fears are caused by many things and most of them are outside the school context. Family issues, discouragement in life, failed relationships and other personal issues contribute to this fear. The problem is that most teachers imagine that the students are just indifferent to studies and devise cures that end up aggravating the whole situation. They go-ahead to punish the voiceless students instead of finding trying to hear into their silence which may be at times loud. The chapter insists that teachers should shed the negative perceptions they have towards their students especially when the student tries to keep a distance because those perceptions do nothing positive to the fears in the students. The teachers should try to investigate the cause of this aloofness and then take the necessary measures to remedy the situation.

Reason for the Choice of the Chapters

I chose these two chapters because they tackle two of the most serious problems that are facing modern pedagogy. These two problems end up affecting the students, their academic performance, and their future lives. These two chapters deal with the influence of factors outside the school context on the lives of the students which in turn affects their lives in schools. The chapter on fear asserts that the teachers must be pro-active enough and teach the students to conquer themselves first before they can conquer the world. Teachers have excelled in teaching the technical competencies and skills to the students but have failed to nurture personal skills. This has created a generation that is strong externally and weak internally which is very dangerous. This chapter, therefore, emphasizes that the teachers must go back to the drawing board and incorporate elements of subjectivity in their methodology because this is the only approach that can help the students to tackle personal issues.

The second chapter is closely related to the first one because it deals with the perceptions that hinder the learning-teaching process in schools. The chapter insists that the teachers should not devise cures for the problems that the students are facing before they have a comprehensive understanding of the root of the problems because those cures may be more dangerous than the disease.

Importance of the Chapters

These two chapters are important to me and any other teacher because there is a crisis in the education sector brought about by the indifference of the teachers to external issues that have an impact on the teaching-learning process. As a teacher, I may be well versed in the subject content and have the best methodologies but this cannot translate to success because the educational process is not all about content and methodology. Focus on methodology and content creates academic giants and social dwarfs and this means that the social aspects of education should not be relegated to the sidelines. The current situation in the world where we have a very strong and technical generation that has weak interpersonal and social skills is a problem that stems from the education methods used in schools that do not focus on personal development. These chapters have taught me that teachers should be responsible not only for the academic and technical development of the students but also for their personal and social development. The teachers should understand that there are factors outside the school system that impact the teaching and learning process and they should not run away from these issues. The first chapter is especially important because it has vividly illustrated the main fear that teachers face. It has illustrated that the courage to teach us all about overcoming the objectivist dimension in the teaching process because removing oneself from the real-life situations that are affecting the students does not in any way help them to discover themselves. As a teacher, I should not avoid being subjective and I should not worry when personal bias creeps into my teaching methodology, because this subjectivity is very important in equipping the students with life skills.

Reflections

Finally, the two chapters have reflected on both my learning and my teaching. My teachers suffered from the same weaknesses that have been tackled in the two chapters. They never tried to help us understand issues to do with our personality and they also devised harmful cures to problems they perceived and the same trend continues even today as we teach. We rarely seek to understand the students and help them cope with real-life issues that are outside the classroom setting.

References

Palmer, J. (2007). The Courage to Teach. NJ: Prentice Hall

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Courage to Teach by Palmer: How to Deal With Fear

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