The Teacher Within

A topic of continuing discussion in the USA is the quality of teaching in undergraduate programmes. In the face of the criticism of the quality of teaching and the increasing pressures this puts on academics, Parker Palmer in his book The Courage to Teach, encourages teachers to look inwardly at the career they have chosen in order to develop a greater understanding of what it means to be a teacher. He steers away from the issues of techniques and the curriculum to look more intimately at the life of the teacher. Palmer uses his own teaching career and stories as a basis for this exploration of the inner self of the teacher. The book builds on the premise that "good teaching cannot be reduced to technique; good teaching comes from the identity and integrity of the teacher" (p. 10).

Two themes which run through The Courage to Teach are worthy of singling out as issues of teaching and learning with relevance to higher education in Australia. The first is the need for teachers to talk to each other. Palmer talks of the "guidance that a community of collegial discourse provides ... and the support such a community can offer to sustain [him] in the trials of teaching" (p. 142). He makes this point in light of the fact that teaching is a very private profession. A comparison is made between teachers, who generally teach on their own, and surgeons and lawyers who practice under the scrutiny of colleagues. "Teachers can lose sponges or amputate the wrong limb with no witnesses except the victims" (p. 142). Palmer advocates for teachers to spend more time talking to each other about teaching and for peer observation of teaching. "There is only one honest way to evaluate the many varieties of good teaching with the subtlety required: it is called being there" (p. 143).

Part of this private nature of teaching stems from what Palmer describes as the 'culture of fear', the second theme worthy of note. "Fear is what distances us from our colleagues, our students, our subjects, ourselves" (p. 36). For fear of being exposed to our colleagues we teach in private. For fear of being exposed to our students (or our colleagues) we dare not take the risks in making teaching and learning more adventurous and rewarding. Students fear the teacher and classroom where they feel marginalised and disempowered. This is not to exclude 'healthy fear' which helps us survive and learn and grow. To address the culture of fear Palmer says we need to understand "how and why fear dominates our lives" (p.40). To do this and to better understand the inner self of the teacher we need to expand our dialogue to "topics that take us beyond technique and into the fundamental issues of teaching" (p.144). We should not ignore the 'human issues' in teaching.

• Palmer, P. J. (1998). The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher's Life. San Francisco, Jossey-Bass.