Chapter I
The Heart of a Teacher
Identity and Integrity in Teaching

1. If we want to grow as teachers, we must learn to talk to each other about our inner lives, our own identity and integrity.
   1. As you study this book with others, you are invited to share your strengths and your weaknesses, your hopes and your despairs-or to confront them on your own. What are your ex­pectations for this process? What fears do you have about it? How are you encouraged or discouraged in such sharing by the institution in which you teach?
   2. Write journal responses to these questions and, if appropriate, share them: What drew you to participate in this inquiry? What do you want others to know about your strengths and weaknesses and about your learning style that would help you participate fully in this group? What do you want to recall about yourself as you engage in solitary reflection?
   3. Write a personal statement trying to express what is at the heart of your life as a teacher. Consider the following questions: Why did I become a teacher? What do I stand for as a teacher? What are the "birthright gifts" that I bring to my lifework? What do I want my legacy as a teacher to be? What can I do to "keep track of myself," to remember my own heart?

SEGMENT 1: EDUCATING THE HEART

• What are your inner gifts, the gifts you bring to the world simply by being who you are?
• Do you feel able to give your gifts freely? If not, what is keeping you from doing so?
• How do you understand the phrase "the education of the heart" and its implications for teaching and learning?
• What experiences have you had at trying to educate the "heart that moves the hand" as well as the mind whose cognitive capacities the skillful hand requires?

1. Identity lies in the intersection of the diverse forces that make up a life, while integrity lies in relating to those forces in ways that bring us wholeness and life.
   1. Identity and integrity are closely related concepts. How do you understand their relationships and distinctions? What does each concept mean to you?
   2. Do you have a story about a teacher whose work clearly flows from identity and integrity? About a teacher who seemed to be out of touch with his or her identity? What in­sights do you draw from these stories?
   3. When did you first know that you wanted to become a teacher? Do you have childhood memories or stories that seem to connect with your adult decision to pursue this vocation? Share your responses, listening carefully for the 'seeds of vocation' in your own life and others' lives.
   4. When did you first realize that you are a teacher? What were the circumstances of this realization? What feelings accompanied it? How close are you to those feelings today?

SEGMENT 2: TEACHING WITH PASSION

• In relation to your work, what are you most passionate about?
• To what extent are your passions integral to who you are, such that you would feel diminished if you were unable to express them?
• Does the subject you teach give you a "richer view of the world and a larger sense of self"? In what ways? Has that aspect of your work changed over time?
• How do you engage students in your passion for your subject in a way that does not ignore their passions and at the same time gives them an opportunity to grow into new ones?

1. Good teaching cannot be reduced to technique; good teaching comes from the identity and integrity of the teacher.
   1. What aspects of your identity and integrity feel most supported by and engaged with the work you do? What aspects of your identity and integrity feel most threatened or endangered by your work?
   2. As a teacher, are there moments when you have attempted to protect your identity and integrity from being violated? Are there other moments when you have allowed some sort of violation to occur?
   3. "Good teachers possess a capacity for connectedness." They "weave" the connections between themselves, their subjects, and their students on "the loom of the heart." How does that image speak to you? What is your experience of trying to hold the tension of these connections in your heart?
   4. "The undivided self" is one in which every major thread of one's life experience is honored, creating a weave of such coherence and strength that it can hold together students, subject, and self. Do you know anyone, in any field, who seems to have an undivided self? How does that quality manifest itself in the work that person does?
2. Bad teachers distance themselves from their students and subjects, while good teachers "join self and subject and students in the fabric of life" (p. 11).
   1. Jane Tompkins discovered that her goal as a teacher had been to put on a "performance," thus distancing herself from students and subject. Do you identify with her self-criticism? If so, do you share Tompkins's diagnosis of fear as the driving force behind this distancing? In what ways other than "performance" do teachers set themselves apart?
   2. "The ability to connect with my students and to connect them with the subject depends less on the methods I use than on the degree to which I know and trust my selfhood and make my selfhood available and vulnerable." What does it mean to rely on your selfhood rather than methods? What fears do you have about making your selfhood available and vulnerable? In what ways have these fears led you to disconnect from your students or your subject?
   3. What methods have you used to try to connect your students with your subjects? Which ones were effective? Which ones were ineffective? What do you learn about your identity and in­tegrity as a teacher from knowing which methods do and do not work for you?

SEGMENT 3: STUDENTS KNOW

• Think back to a positive teacher-related academic learning experience in your life. How would you describe that teacher as a person? How did that teacher connect with you? How did you connect with that teacher?
• Now think about a teacher from whom you did not learn much. How would you describe that teacher as a person? What went on inside of you in the presence of that teacher?
• What does it feel like when you are connected to your subject? To your students?
• What do you think happens in and among your students when you teach from that place of connection? What happens to your students when that connection is missing?

1. If we want to deepen our understanding of our integrity, we must experiment with our lives.
   1. What "experiments" have you conducted with your own life? What risks have you taken with these experiments, and what price have you paid? What have you learned from these experiments-about yourself and about the world?
   2. What are some ways that teachers may "experiment" with their work in order to deepen their understanding of their own identity and integrity? What can we learn from these experiments in teaching? What are the risks? What are the rewards?
   3. Given the balance of risks and rewards, is experimentation-with one's work or one's life-worth it? If so, what is the next experiment you might want to make? Why?

SEGMENT 4: RECLAIMING PASSION

• When did you first know you wanted to be a teacher? How did you know? How did it feel? Do you have a story to tell about a particular moment of self-discovery, or did it come to you more gradually over time?
• As you think back on your original motivation or inspiration to become a teacher, what feelings are evoked in you at this moment? What is the current state of your original desire or passion to teach?
• If you are feeling any sort of pain in relation to your vocation as a teacher, how do you name that pain? How do you understand its source? How do you or might you deal with it?
• If you feel like your "flame" for teaching is flickering or dying or dead, do you want to keep it alive? If so, what would help?
• What is your soul "trying to call forth in you"?

1. The best gift we receive from great mentors is not their knowledge or their approach to teaching but the sense of self they evoke within us.
   1. Share a story about one of your favorite teachers. What do you most vividly remember about that teacher? How did he or she make you feel? What was his or her relation to the subject taught? What was the ethos of his or her classroom? What does that scenario tell you about that teacher's identity and integrity?
   2. Thinking about that same teacher, what does his or her story tell you about who you were at that time in your life? What was it about you, and about that moment in your life, that made this teacher great for you? What gift or truth about yourself did that teacher help reveal?
   3. Have you been mentored by someone whose relation to you at the time seemed negative-someone who helped you understand your weaknesses rather than your strengths, your limits rather than your potentials? If so, talk about this relationship and what you got out of it, contrasting your feelings at the time with the feelings you have...