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.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of listening to students to help them express themselves confidently.
Parker J. Palmer highlights the crucial role of educators in creating a safe space for students to find and articulate their voices. By recognizing and understanding the silent fears that often prevent students from speaking up, teachers can foster an environment that encourages honest self-expression and builds confidence, ultimately allowing students to share their truths more freely.
In practice
During a teacher training workshop to emphasize the importance of active listening skills.
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.
Before I can tell my life what I want to do with it, I must listen to my life telling me who I am.
Self-care is never a selfish act - it is only good stewardship of the only gift I have, the gift I was put on earth to offer others.
We need a coat with two pockets. In one pocket there is dust, and in the other pocket there is gold. We need a coat with two pockets to remind us who we are.
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.
Our deepest calling is to grow into our own authentic self-hood, whether or not it conforms to some image of who we ought to be. As we do so, we will not only find the joy that every human being seeks--we will also find our path of authentic service in the world.
Education - lifelong education for everyone - from toddlers to workers well advanced in their careers - is indeed an excellent investment for individuals and society as a whole.
Most of the people who will walk after me will be children, so make the beat keep time with short steps.
In reading, we are both scientists and poets.
There are some people who read too much: the bibliobibuli. I know some who are constantly drunk on books, as other men are drunk on whiskey or religion. They wander through this most diverting and stimulating of worlds in a haze, seeing nothing and hearing nothing.
The pupil is ... 'schooled' to confuse teaching with learning, grade advancement with education, a diploma with competence, and fluency with the ability to say something new.
Without the concepts, methods and results found and developed by previous generations right down to Greek antiquity one cannot understand either the aims or achievements of mathematics in the last 50 years. [Said in 1950]
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