Rachael Kessler was a dear friend and greatly valued colleague in the movement to deepen, enrich and humanize education for students and teachers alike. She was caring, insightful, committed and courageous, and she had a beautiful soul. We miss you, Rachael -- may you rest in peace. And we hold you and your family in the Light as the journey, and the work, continue. With love and gratitude, Parker Palmer
Rachael Kessler 1946-2010
On January 27, Rachael Kessler, the founder of PassageWorks and author of the The Soul of Education died in Boulder, Colorado. Many of you who are educators know of her work in social and emotional learning with young people and her development of the PassageWorks curriculum for use in classrooms and schools.
Rachael’s work with the inner life of students is very kindred to our work in Circles of Trust, and she was always a strong supporter of Courage to Teach and a friend of the Center. If you’d like to learn more about PassageWorks check out this wonderful youtube piece below. Several of our Circle of Trust facilitators have worked closely with Rachael over the years and her bright spirit and strong advocacy on behalf of young people will be sorely missed.
To learn more about PassageWorks, please visit their site, where you'll find an article about grief written by Rachael.
THE BLOG
It takes a village to do Courage & Renewal work! The programs of the Center, its affiliates and its 176 facilitators would not have reached 40,000 people over the past fifteen years if they were not embedded in a leader-rich community. This blog reflects the fact that Courage & Renewal work is about "us," not about any one person. So I've invited my colleagues to share in keeping this conversation going, and now we invite you to join us with your thoughts, questions, and stories. As Marge Piercy says in the last stanza of "The Low Road," a marvelous poem about how movements for change unfold,
"it starts when you say We/and know who you mean, and each/day you mean one more.”
If blogs are foreign to you, don’t let that put you off. Last month I had no idea what a blog was, but (with a nod to Stephen Colbert) today I am one -- and so can you!
Parker J. Palmer
Blogs We Read
KFLA Courageous Leadership Blog
Yardsticks 4-14
Courage & Renewal North Texas
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