| To know as we are known: A spirituality of education |  | Author: Parker J Palmer
Publisher: Harper & Row
Category: Book
List Price: $16.00
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Avg. Customer Rating:  28 reviews
Sales Rank: 888351
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1st
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 130
ISBN: 0060664568
EAN: 9780060664565
ASIN: 0060664568
Publication Date: 1983
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Product Description
This primer on authentic education explores how mind and heart can work together in the learning process. Moving beyond the bankruptcy of our current model of education, Parker Palmer finds the soul of education through a lifelong cultivation of the wisdom each of us possesses and can share to benefit others.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 23 more reviews...
To Know As We Are Known Book Review July 16, 2008
Teresa Huneke
To Know As We Are Known
By
Parker Palmer
Parker believes there is a "spirituality of education". He believes all learning should not be to the determent of others. He believes that currently our educational system uplifts the thought that "knowledge is power". We use this power in ways that suit our own needs and don't look to the whole of our world. He believes that we have separated the visible world from the invisible world in our educational systems. One way Parker Palmer believes we can remedy this is to see the relatedness in everything. Some of the ways he forms this relatedness is to reduce the objectivity in teaching, create a safe learning environment, form relationships with his students, creates space with the use of silence to draw out learning.
Parker Palmer is very left wing on his view of our present education system. Parker's weakness is manifested in his broad generalizations about the present educational system. Broad generalizations are untruthful for a portion of the group. Whenever you only see the negative in a system you are not seeing what good lies within that system. Parker wants to form relatedness yet he couldn't relate to our present education model. I can see that Parker wanted to emphasize what was negative about our present educational system thus catalyzing change. In this model of education the teacher is seen as a mediator and the student is held more accountable for his own education, thus creating accountability to each other and the world. His view of education is almost a romantic view; it creates a oneness or love with ourselves our community, our world, and our God. This form of facilitating education is used successfully in lots of early childhood family education classes and would be useful in any ministerial training session. This style of facilitating educations makes everyone feel that they have valuable input to the education process. They learn from each other which validates who they are as a person.
 Rekindling excitement about teaching May 3, 2008
This books is extremely inspiring. It has gotten me excited about community again, and in particular how it differentiates the various types of community. This had gotten me excited again about teaching, for it sets teaching into spiritual perspective.
Palmer's classic November 2, 2006
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
This book is an excellent guide for the person interested in teaching AND learning. Though Palmer takes an unabashedly Christian viewpoint in developing his approach to pedagogy, the reader need not subscribe to that or any other inflationary metaphysical framework. His critique of "modern" education is consistent in many ways with that of postmodernism and other critical perspectives. Though the author speaks with a communitarian voice (which carries with it other assumptions about the organization of the life-world with which one may not agree), Palmer sketches a new (and needed) subjectivity for the teacher/learner. (The book makes an interesting addition to any reading regime concerned with social epistemology.)
Outstanding and transformational! March 21, 2006
12 out of 12 found this review helpful
Parker Palmer has created a truly outstanding work with To Know as We Are Known. This work explores the nature of truth, and challenges readers to examine and transform the ways they teach and learn
Palmer's model centers on the premise that truth is neither objective (an object can be manipulated, abused, and co-opted for use to whatever ends we so desire, we do not bear the kind of love that requires responsibility toward objects) nor subjective (subjectivism is the decision to listen only to ourselves in the search for truth, it concedes diversity without calling into dialogue.) Truth is relational. Real truth can only be found in an open willingness to both search out and listen in respect (borne out of non-selfish love) to the subject being learned, the students being taught, and to the future we are creating together.
In order to illustrate the objectivist approach to knowledge, he uses the example of the atomic bomb. He quotes Robert Oppenheimer as saying "The physicists have known sin." The objective way treats knowledge as something self-contained, and takes no responsibility for the outcomes of research or development. He lets the fruits of this way, the example of Hiroshima, stand in stark contrast to a story about 4th century wandering mystics and hermits (the Desert Fathers and Mothers.)
The story is about Abba (Father) Felix, and a group of monks who sought him out for his wisdom. They begged him to give them a word of truth. He was silent for a long time, and then explained that God had withdrawn words of truth from old men, because those who seek them out had no intention of following the truth they received with their lives. The brothers then realized their own intentions and groaned "Pray for us Abba Felix!"
In this example, which becomes a central illustration throughout the book, Abba Felix is not treating truth (in this case religious truth) as an object which he possesses and can dispense to whomever he pleases. Instead, he initiates a relationship with the students, assessing their need- which is not platitudes or gems of wisdom, but a wake-up call- and gives them truth in love that transforms their minds instead of just adding to their store of objective knowledge bits. Palmer describes how this method is applicable not only to religious truth but to all subjects; from treating historical literary figures as friends whose voices need to be listened for in their work, to emphasizing the responsibility to community and future with which scientists need to go about their research.
The style of writing can be a bit complicated at first. This is hardly surprising, as Palmer tells us he has spent his early career writing for Academia. It is, however, well worth the minor effort needed to adjust to the style. Another weakness of this work is the practical application suggestions, Palmer spends only two chapters on them and at that point the book gets less engaging.
Overall, these problems are vastly overshaddowed by the worth of this book. It is transformational, and I wish everyone would read, understand, and be open to its message.
 Interesting but repetitive... February 27, 2006
3 out of 6 found this review helpful
I felt this book was interesting but repetitive. Throughout the book Parker Palmer used the idea of truth as a means to develop a relationship and a healthy educational environment. I continually felt that I wanted new information.
He made some very good points regarding relationships; especially those involved in the educational process. Both teachers and students should act with humility, trust each other, work collaboratively, and transcend the traditional teacher-student relationship.
I appreciated the point made by Palmer, "So the classroom where truth is central will be a place where every stranger and every strange utterance is met with welcome" (74). We can use this as an opportunity to learn from each other. Palmer claims that, "The teacher who offers a single body of data and omits competing evidence closes the learning space" (77).
"To learn is to face transformation" (41). Both students and teachers should be open to learning from each other and preventing any prejudices from interfering with new knowledge gains and growth of oneself in the process.
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