The purpose of this paper is to explore P.J. Palmer’s theory of “courage to teach” as well as the implication for teaching

and learning.

 

Methods of philosophical hermeneutic are employed to investigate important works of Palmer.

 

According to Palmer, fear of teaching is caused by the fact that instructors are not able to know their true self. Another

significant cause lies in the ignoring of different personal values and lifestyles between students and teachers. To reduce

the fears related to these differences, students and teachers alike make use of rationalized teaching and learning

strategies to control their subjective feelings. In this way, students and teachers seek ways to increase safe distances

between them, but end up resulting in alienation. In order to improve this situation, Palmer suggests that teachers work

to keep the epistemology of love as their starting point. He also suggests that teachers open their own hearts to vanquish

those fears, which cause us to excessively protect ourselves as well as to face with courage the paradox and fear existing

between ourselves, society, nature and the universe. Only in this way will students and teachers provoke each other into

reflecting the limitations of their own personal values, knowledge and experience, allowing each individual’s reason,

emotions, and spirituality to be brought into the relationship between the knowledge and ethics of great things.