JOANNE
PAYLING
Diary #9
Recovering
the Sacred
in Teaching and Learning
"Good teaching
cannot be reduced to technique; good teaching comes from the identity
and integrity of the teacher."
So says Parker
J. Palmer in a book I must order and read. It is entitled The Courage
to Teach : Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher's Life.
I had never
heard of this writer and teacher until Friday when I followed a link from
my Public Education Network (PEN) Weekly
NewsBlast email. The article I found there moved me and spoke to me
on a level I haven't experienced in years. It was entitled The
Grace of Great Things: Recovering the Sacred in Knowing, Teaching, and
Learning.
All too often
we humans (or is it we Americans?) are afraid to express any spirituality
or knowledge of the sacred. We shy away from any mention of our souls
lest we appear "holier than thou" or for fear we may be seen as proselytizing
a specific view or belief. Yet everything Dr. Palmer wrote in the article
resonated with me. I no longer practice any formal religion, nor do I
espouse any specific beliefs. Yet I agree with this author that what we
need in our teaching is a firm grounding in grace and in "Recovering the
Sacred in Knowing, Teaching, and Learning."
From my knowledge
of the teachers who participate in the Middleweb
listserv, I see this awareness in practice daily, although none of
us mention the "grace" which aids our teaching, or the "sacred" in what
we teach, or the "soul" of our students, much less our own souls. It is
risky baring my soul this way: letting strangers read that I believe I
have a soul and that I believe my calling is to nurture my students' souls
and that I consider what I am doing sacred. But I do believe it, and since
this is a diary, why not write it here?
Every day
I doubt my abilities as an effective teacher. I see my students' eyes
glaze when I share with them the meaning of 'primordial' or when I give
the spelling assignment for the week. They are nowhere near as excited
about Buck's struggle for survival in Call of the Wild as I am.
It saddens me that I don't seem to be reaching them, connecting them to
the joy of learning, to savoring the satisfaction of adding a new word
to their personal lexicon or to understanding the concept of internal
versus external conflict.
Yet . . .
yet . . . what I do glimpse on occasion is appreciation in some students'
eyes, usually the students who are too often overlooked because they are
shy or who are not necessarily the "star" pupils, or who are the ones
who seem buffeted by the middle school whirl. Could it be that my soul
reaches their souls on some level? Is this an aspect of grace and the
sacred? Could it be that my empathy, my "niceness", makes them a better
student because a connection has been made between us?
It is a starting
place, at least. Technique will come. Integrity and a searching soul I
already claim.
