I believe the second paradox proposed by Parker Palmer works in concert with the first paradox. “The space should be hospitable and ‘charged'” while being bounded and open. People “feel free to speak, but their speaking is always guided towards the topic … the open space is liberating [as it is] inviting, as well as safe and open” (p. 77). The negotiated contract is a covenant built through trusting and honest relationships where participants find their voices. “The space must also be charged. … No special effects are required to create this charge – it comes with the territory. We only need fence the space, fill it with topics of significance and refuse to let anyone evade or trivialize them” (p. 78).
I believe lessons learned from Finland’s educational experience, therefore the topics of significance here, was recognizing public education is a fundamental human right for each child and providing equal and unfettered opportunity for each child. Through open and safe conversation, implementation strategies uniquely suited to each community is revealed. People respectfully share their views in a safe, bounded, expansive, and invigorating space where they feel welcomed and honoured. The space honours each person’s truth as each person, in turn, respects the truths of others.
What can we do to create this space?
Reference
Palmer, P. (2007). The Courage to teach: Exploring the inner landscape of a teacher’s life. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
About ivonprefontaine
In keeping with bell hooks and Noam Chomsky, I consider myself a public and dissident intellectual. Part of my work is to move beyond (transcend) institutional dogmas that bind me to defend freedom, raising my voice to be heard on behalf of those who seek equity and justice in all their forms.
I completed my PhD in Philosophy of Leadership Studies at Gonzaga University, Spokane, WA. My dissertation and research was how teachers experience becoming teachers and their role as leaders.
I focus on leading, communicating, and innovating in organizations. This includes mindfuful servant-leadership, World Cafe events, Appreciative Inquiry, and expressing one's self through creativity. I offer retreats, workshops, and presentations that can be tailored to your organzations specific needs.
I published peer reviewed articles about schools as learning organizations, currere as an ethical pursuit, and hope as an essential element of adult eductaion. I published three poems and am currently preparing my poetry to publish as an anthology of poetry.
I present on mindful leadership, servant leadership, schools as learning organizations, how teachers experience becoming teachers, assessement, and critical thinking. I facilitate mindfulness, hospitality retreats. and World Cafe Events using Appreciative Inquiry.
I am writing and researching about various forms of leadership, how teachers inform and form their identity as a particular teacher, schools as learning organizations, hope, nonviolence and its anticipatory relationship with the future, as essential elements to teaching and learning.
Academic publications can be found at Ivon Gile Prefontaine on ResearchGate
Teacher as Transformer 