The Scariest Book I Had Ever Read
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In this episode, I spoke with Parker Palmer about the connection between teaching and learning, healing the heart of democracy, and following the path of integrity.
I’ve been reading Parker J Palmer’s books for years. He's the author of 10 books about education, community leadership, spirituality, and social change. Three of these particularly resonated with my own experience: Let Your Life Speak, The Courage to Teach, and On the Brink of Everything: Grace, Gravity, and Getting Old. and one of them stood out as the scariest book I had ever read.
Parker J. Palmer is also the founder and senior partner emeritus of the Center for Courage and Renewal.
Key Topics:
03:33 The interplay of aging and vocation: How to keep learning through experience with the limitations that come with age;
09:38 The connection between teaching and learning: Teaching as an expert with relatively static knowledge versus teaching as a more dynamic process;
13:34 The community of truth: How we know what we know and the validity of our knowledge;
19:53 The scariest book I had ever read: Why this book resonated so deeply and prompted a perspective shift around leadership, epistemology, faithfulness, and effectiveness;
29:12 Putting wheels on ideas: Creating a vehicle that will allow other people to ride an idea and reshape it as they go toward destinations of their own choosing;
35:43 Following the path of integrity: Despite our greatest ambitions and clear intentions to live a life of virtue aligned with our values, it can be hard in practice.
Additional Resources from Parker