Parker J. Palmer Quotes About Students

Quotes about: Students

• The academic bias against subjectivity not only forces our students to write poorly ("It is believed...," instead of, "I believe..."), it deforms their thinking about themselves and their world. In a single stroke, we delude our students into believing that bad prose turns opinions into facts and we alienate them from their own inner lives.

  Parker J. Palmer

  Believe, Writing, Heart

  Parker J. Palmer (2017). “The Courage to Teach Guide for Reflection and Renewal”, p.113, John Wiley & Sons

• Teaching, like any truly human activity, emerges from one's inwardness, for better or worse. As I teach I project the condition of my soul onto my students, my subject, and our way of being together. The entanglements I experience in the classroom are often no more or less than the convolutions of my inner life. Viewed from this angle, teaching holds a mirror to the soul. If I am willing to look in that mirror and not run from what I see, I have a chance to gain self-knowledge-and knowing myself is as crucial to good teaching as knowing my students and my subject.

  Parker J. Palmer

  Running, Educational, Teaching

  Parker J. Palmer, Megan Scribner (2007). “The Courage to Teach Guide for Reflection and Renewal”, p.102, John Wiley & Sons

• I now understand what Nelle Morton meant when she said that one of the great tasks in our time is to "hear people to speech." Behind their fearful silence, our students want to find their voices, speak their voices, have their voices heard. A good teacher is one who can listen to those voices even before they are spoken-so that someday they can speak with truth and confidence.

  Parker J. Palmer

  Teacher, Teaching, Voice

  Parker J. Palmer (2012). “The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher's Life”, p.47, John Wiley & Sons

• The kind of teaching that transforms people does not happen if the student’s inward teacher is ignored… we can speak to the teacher within our students only when we are on speaking terms with the teacher within ourselves.

  Parker J. Palmer

  Teacher, Teaching, People

  Parker J. Palmer (2012). “The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher's Life”, p.32, John Wiley & Sons

• Mentoring is a mutuality that requires more than meeting the right teacher: the teacher must meet the right student.

  Parker J. Palmer

  Teacher, Teaching, Mentoring

  Parker J. Palmer (2012). “The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher's Life”, p.22, John Wiley & Sons

• As I teach, I project the condition of my soul onto my students, my subject, and our way of being together.

  Parker J. Palmer

  Soul, Together, Way

  Parker J. Palmer, Megan Scribner (2007). “The Courage to Teach Guide for Reflection and Renewal”, p.102, John Wiley & Sons

• Whoever our students may be, whatever the subject we teach, ultimately we teach who we are.

  Parker J. Palmer

  Teaching, May, Who We Are

• Every good teacher and every good parent has somehow learned to negotiate the paradox of freedom and discipline. We want our children and our students to become people who think and live freely, yet at the same time we know that helping them become free requires us to restrict their freedom in certain situations.

  Parker J. Palmer

  Teacher, Children, Freedom

  Parker J. Palmer (2012). “The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher's Life”, p.87, John Wiley & Sons

• Good teachers join self and subject and students in the fabric of life.

  Parker J. Palmer

  Teacher, Self, Fabric Of Life

  Parker J. Palmer (2017). “The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher's Life”, p.47, John Wiley & Sons

• For me, teaching is about weaving a web of connectedness between myself, my students, the subject I'm teaching, and the larger world.

  Parker J. Palmer

  Teaching, World, Weaving

  "The Teacher's Journey: An Interview with Parker J. Palmer". Interview with Ron Jackson, www.youthworker.com.

• Although there are some enormously gifted lecturers and preachers who do create community with oratory, I like to do anything I can to engage my students with each other, with me, and with the subject. And the subject, I think, always has to take prominence.

  Parker J. Palmer

  Thinking, Community, Oratory

  "The Teacher's Journey: An Interview with Parker J. Palmer". Interview with Ron Jackson, www.youthworker.com.

• Students want to know, "Are you painting by the numbers, or are you really present as a human being to what you are doing; and is it coming from inside of you?" So I would ask teachers this question: "Do you have a wellgrounded personal experience and conviction concerning whatever it is you are trying to teach?"

  Parker J. Palmer

  Teacher, Numbers, Trying

  "The Teacher's Journey: An Interview with Parker J. Palmer". Interview with Ron Jackson, www.youthworker.com.

• People are always asking, "Is this person in front of me the same on the inside as he or she appears to be on the outside? Is there congruence between what's within that person and the words and actions I'm viewing and hearing externally?" Children ask that about their parents; students ask it about their teachers; parishioners ask it about their pastors and priests; employees ask it about their bosses; and in a democracy, citizens ask it about their political leaders.

  Parker J. Palmer

  Teacher, Children, People

  "The Teacher's Journey: An Interview with Parker J. Palmer". Interview with Ron Jackson, www.youthworker.com.

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