%% #📓 #📚 #🔴 %% **Title:** The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher's Life **Author:** [[Parker Palmer]] **Citation:** Palmer, P. J. (2017). *The courage to teach: Exploring the inner landscape of a teacher's life* (20th Anniversary). Jossey-Bass. --- # Abstract ~ 3 Sentence Summary # Structure # Notes & Important Ideas - # Connections to Other Materials ### [[How do we remain authentic while continuing to grow]]? # Personal Reflection & Application ### Community of Truth I love those moments of deep soul connection, when you see or hear something for the first time and you shout to yourself 'Yes! This! Even though I've never heard of this before, I have always known it and felt it deep inside.' It happened to me again when I read Palmer's description of the [[community of truth]]. I had never heard that term before but it resonated strongly. I absolutely love and agree with the idea that truth is the process of discovery and dialogue, not the outcome of it (Palmer, 2017, p.106). This reminds me of an experience I had as a participant in an incredible community leadership program. A group of about 30 or so individuals from our community were nominated to participate in a 6-month leadership development program. We were a diverse group, selected to represent a cross-section of age groups, industries, and experience levels. We met every month over a long weekend to learn a variety of leadership theories and practices, to discover our own leadership styles and how to work with others. After completing all the training we were tasked with identifying and implementing a group project. We had to choose the project by consensus, we were not allowed to identify a single leader to organize the group, and we were supposed to use what we had learned to accomplish our goal. But our facilitator impressed upon us that it really wasn't about the project, but that the most important thing to focus on was the process. I fully embraced that and became the member who was constantly reminding everyone that "It's the process!" I'm not sure that I can really articulate the feeling I had throughout that experience, and even now as I remember it. It's a feeling I've had on only a few other occasions in similar situations. Transcendent, or whole, maybe. It's the real reason why I enrolled in graduate school, because I find it most often in moments when I'm engaged in learning with others. If I could manage to be the kind of leader that can "create a space in which the community of truth is practiced" (Palmer, 2017, p. 92) my life would be truly fulfilled. --- # Other References ## Tags