"This book is for teachers who have good days and bad --and whose bad days bring the suffering that comes only fromsomething one loves. It is for teachers who refuse to hardentheir hearts, because they love learners, learning, and theteaching life." - Parker J. Palmer [from the Introduction]Teachers choose their vocation for reasons of the heart, because they care deeply about their students and abouttheir subject. But the demands of teaching cause too manyeducators to lose heart. Is it possible to take heart in teaching once more so that we can continue to do what good teachers always do -- give heart to our students?In The Courage to Teach, Parker Palmer takes teachers on an inner journey toward reconnecting with their vocation and their students -- and recovering their passion for one of the most difficult and important of human endeavors.

PARKER J. PALMER is a highly respected writer who works indepAndently on issues in education, community, spirituality, and social change; he offers lectures, workshops, and retreats across the country. In 1998, The Leadership Project, a survey of 11,000 educators, named Dr. Palmer as one of the thirty most influential senior leaders in higher education and one of ten key 'agAnda-setters' of the past decade: He has inspired a generation of teachers and reformers with evocative visions of community, knowing, and spiritual wholeness. Dr. Palmer is senior associate of the American Association for Higher Education and senior advisor to the Fetzer Institute, for whom he designed the Teacher Formation Program for K-12 teachers. Author of such widely-praised books as The Company of Strangers, The Active Life, and To Know As We Are Known, he holds a Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley. He lives in Madison, Wisconsin.