Stories of the Courage to Teach Honoring the Teacher's Heart

by Intrator, Sam M.; Palmer, Parker J.

• ISBN13: 9780787996840
• ISBN10: 078799684X
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-08-17
• Publisher: Jossey-Bass

Summary

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

Author Biography

The son of two retired New York City teachers, Sam M. Intrator began teaching at Smith College in 1999 after more than a decade of teaching and administrative service in public schools in Brooklyn, Vermont, and California. Intrator teaches courses on Urban Education, Teenagers in American Culture, and the Teaching of Writing. He also founded the Smith College Urban Education Initiative—an educational outreach program that seeks to deepen students’ understanding of the theoretical, practical, and human issues facing urban educators by engaging them in intensive service learning experience in urban school settings.

Intrator’s books and research inquire into what it takes for teachers and students to co-create intellectually vibrant and genuinely meaningful experiences in the classroom. He has written or edited five books, including Tuned in and Fired Up: How Teaching Can Inspire Real Learning in the Classroom (Yale University Press, 2003), which was a finalist for the prestigious Grawemeyer Award in Education. Intrator has received a number of awards for his teaching and public service, including a Kellogg National Leadership Fellowship, an Ella Baker Fellowship, and the Distinguished Teacher Award from the White House Commission of Presidential Scholars. His latest effort is the co-development of Project Coach—an after-school program that prepares high school students from underserved communities to be youth sport coaches. These youth coaches then run neighborhood sport leagues in their home neighborhoods.

Intrator holds a Ph.D. from Stanford University and an MA degree from the Bread Loaf School of English.

Table of Contents

Gratitudes

Foreword: Listening to Teachers

Introduction: Honoring the Teacher’s Heart

Turning Inward: Sustaining Our Own Hearts

Speaking from the Heart

This Is Where Teaching Gets Real

Teaching Had Become an Ordinary Job

An Experiment with Truth: One Teacher’s Path

Doing Small Things with Great Love

Despair and Love in Teaching (Daniel P. Liston

Sam Scheer: Coming to Terms with a Lifetime of Teaching

Adult Conversations About Unasked Questions: Teaching for Educational Justice

Reaching Out: Forging Relationships That Sustain Our Hearts

The Meaning of Life Assignment

Reclaiming Identity: Sharing a Teacher’s Truth

Of Aliens and Space

You’re the One I Expected to Meet

Arriving Where I Started: Rediscovering the Newness

Feeling, Thinking, and Acting for Change

Finding the Courage to Be Seventeen in Forty-Four-Year-Old Skin

Adversity as Ally

III. Making Change: Reforms That Honor the Teacher’s Heart

So Sweet It Made Me Jingled: Offering My Own Truth Within the System

The Risk of Teaching and Learning Differently

Lift Every Voice

Teaching Excellence and the Inner Life of a Faculty

Journey into the Wilderness: A Teacher-Researcher Group’s Retreat

Teachers-to-Be Learning from Students-Who-Are: Reconfiguring Undergraduate Teacher Preparation

Honor the People; It’s the Leader’s Work

From Charity to Justice: Toward a Theology of Urban School Reform

Toward a Leadership of Peace for the Twenty-First-Century Academy

IV. Rejuvenating Heart: The Courage to Teach Program

Courage to Teach: A Retreat Program of Personal and Professional Renewal for Educators

Afterword: What I Heard Them Say

Resources That Honor and Sustain the Teacher’s Heart (Compiled by Helen Lee)

The Editor

Center for Courage & Renewal

Index

Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.