After reading the first two chapters of Palmer's The Courage to Teach, I am left with mixed feelings. I think the basic premise of the book has some truth to it. A teacher without personal integrity is going to be less effective, for several reasons - they will have no real devotion to their work, they will lack motivation to perfect their teaching technique, and they will have a correspondingly difficult time connecting to and motivating students. However, In my experience a passionate teacher without effective technique is even worse - I think both qualities are central to really great teaching.
Once I started reading however, the contents of the book left me cold. Palmer defines integrity as the process of coming to understand and honor the "forces that converge within us", be they good or bad. This conception of integrity has more in common with the self-seeking narcissism of the self-help movement than with the solid foundation of Christian thought. As the chapter progresses, however, it becomes clear that his real working definition of integrity is the process of confronting and overcoming our personal failings, which then allows us to teach in an authentic way. This is better, but still lacking. Improving ourselves morally is certainly admirable, but Palmer offers no real support for the idea that it is the most fundamental element of teaching. He presents evidence in the form of stories, but I did not find these convincing - it seemed to me that he was forcing his theory over ambiguous situations after the fact.
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