Living Divided No More

• In Event: Pedagogies of the Interior: Building Bridges From the Inside Out

Abstract

Sixteen years ago, I completed my dissertation on Parker Palmer’s (1998) work, The Courage to Teach. I conducted a qualitative investigation of a particular teacher and researched how she created a “community of trust” in a writing course. Since then, the notion and urge to create community has been at the center of my teaching and my writing partnerships. Over the years, I have come to realize more deeply the power and importance of revisiting Parker Palmer’s model for educational reform —especially in conjunction with self-care for teachers in both K-12 and higher education, and my own well-being as a university professor.
In The Courage to Teach (1998, pp. 172-173), Palmer outlines four stages for educational reform. As I re-encounter these stages set forth by Parker Palmer, I see this “mapping” as a guide which has influenced and opened me to new possibilities and relationships which help me to live “divided no more.” I have consciously tried to live “divided no more” and find a center for my life outside of my institution. It is a precarious balance that requires courage, conscious effort, and contemplation.
I am a full professor, have been at my institution for 16 years and have had 11 different department chairs. However, in the midst of it all, I have more than survived in my role as an academic. I have actually thrived amid toxic situations where community is lacking. Perhaps the reason for this is that I have developed partnerships with colleagues both inside and outside of my institution. As Palmer outlines, individuals begin to find one another, “and form communities of congruence that offer mutual support and opportunities to develop a shared vision.” The genesis of this purposeful collective came through the burgeoning relationships I fostered and continue to foster with other academics; these relationships build trust and activate intersubjectivity (Gunnlaugson, 2009).
For example, in 2014, I met Catherine (co-presenter). We had both signed up for a poetry class at the Fine Arts Work Center (FAWC). Unlike me, Catherine is a professor of English, however through conversations in and outside of class, we found that we had much in common. During one of the classes, Catherine and I paired up for a “storytelling-to-poem” exercise. We were each to tell the other a story from our lives. No notes could be taken--we were instructed just to listen deeply. The literacy task after listening to the other’s story was to write a poem about the story we heard, or to craft a poem that combined elements of both stories. We didn’t know it then, but this one exercise led us to write a scholarly article about this work, and to present our work at national and international conferences. We had created community with each other. In the other, we had found a like-minded friend and colleague. We could have never imagined when we met in that poetry class--that we would go on to present together, publish articles together and to co-edit a book.

Author

• Maureen Patricia Hall, University of Massachusetts - Dartmouth