About the Courage in Schools Initiative

A Courage & Renewal initiative for educators

Over the past two decades, the Center for Courage & Renewal has provided thousands of educators personal and professional growth through retreats that offer the time and space to reflect on life and work. These programs, called Courage to Teach® and Courage to Lead®, are led by Courage & Renewal Facilitators across North America and Australia and make use of dialogue, solitude, reflection, and deep listening.

In response to increased interest and new ideas about making these approaches directly accessible to schools and institutions, the Center for Courage & Renewal has also launched a new initiative, Courage in Schools.

Conditions in our increasingly complex and conflicted world are raising questions about what it means to be a citizen in a democracy. The issues that challenge us all anew as citizens are also complicating the work of teachers, on whom the future of our democracy rests. If we expect teachers to help students develop the pivotal skills of democracy an understanding that we are all in this together, an appreciation of the value of "otherness," an ability to hold tension in life-giving ways, a sense of personal voice and agency, and a capacity to create community¹ then we owe them, and all who work in schools, spaces in which they can cultivate these skills in themselves. The mutual respect and courageous dialog that are the bedrock of healthy democracy must begin in the adult communities that establish the habits and habitats that shape the school experience.

Where educators work together supportively in this way, students flourish. Research indicates that a key variable in raising student achievement is the degree of relational trust established among the adults in a school. Dimensions of such trust-shared beliefs about respect, competence, personal regard for others, and integrity-determine whether or not a school can raise the bar for all.² In effective schools, students and teachers feel known, valued, and respected.

Unfortunately, many schools lack these essential social resources. Far too many capable and experienced educators feel deeply discouraged, silenced, disrespected by the broader community, and disconnected from their students and colleagues. Teachers describe days out of balance, with less time for meaningful lessons and more time devoted to testing, less time for collaborating with colleagues to improve instruction and more time in technical workshops to meet mandates. Administrators report marked frustration with their jobs, feeling isolated from those they seek to serve, and often leaving their offices after twelve-hour days with little sense of accomplishment. Consequences of this lack of community an connection are stark.

Teachers an leaders move from school to school and district to district with greater frequency, compromising the continuity and consistency of instruction and student achievement. And many gifted teachers, who expect much of themselves and their students, decide with heavy hearts to leave the profession altogether.

Sensing this emerging condition in schools, Parker J. Palmer began a series of retreats in 1994 for K-12 teachers that have grown into Courage to Teach® and Courage to Lead® programs for educators from preschool through university. This unique approach, described in his best-selling book, The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher's Life, has resonated with over 25,000 educators. They have emerged from these programs with a greater sense of engagement and purpose, and often describe their experiences as transformational. These retreats and programs invite educators into a trustworthy circle of peers to activelyexplore essential challenges, questions, values and vision; to come away with fresh insights and inspiration; and to summon the courage to live to their highest aspirations and potential.

Taking the next step: Courage in Schools

Over the years, educators have found in Courage to Teach and Courage to Lead the community of peers they long for amidst the isolation of classroom and leadership. The connection, honest self-reflection, and challenging conversations about purpose, values, and commitment have made it possible for them to return to difficult work environments with renewed dedication to their students and increased effectiveness in their work.

But now these educators an school leaders are asking for more.

They want to move beyond sustaining themselves to sustaining the communities in which they work everyday. They want to extend the personal transformation they have experienced into the gradual transformation of their schools. In Courage & Renewal programs they have experienced what is possible. Now they are asking us to help them bring this sense of possibility into their institutions so that all there-especially the students it is their calling to serve-will reap the benefits in more powerful teaching an learning.

Our goal then is to sustain an build upon the foundation of our retreat programs by developing new opportunities with teachers and school leaders. We will offer new professional development possibilities, consultation, and practical applications to foster reflection, renewal, and collaborative relationships in their own institutions. And we will introduce new concepts from Parker Plamer's latest book, Healing the Heart of Democracy. We take this new step, confident in the courage and integrity of competent teachers and school leaders who enter the field to help mold character as well as minds, to teach with the heart as well as the head, to build community as well as resumes. Currently, over sixty facilitators from the frontline of education, who have been trained by the Center for Courage & Renewal to lead retreats, along with numerous teachers an school leaders, are participating in the growth an outreach of Courage in Schools.

Educators need increased levels of meaningful support to sustain their ability and their commitment to building the cohesive and trustworthy adult communities critical to educating students for productive an happy lives, and active citizenship. Courage in Schools offers a range of programs including one-day introductory programs, our foundational retreat series, leadership institutes, an individualized institutional professional development.

Current programs: 

• Courageous Schools: Teaching & Leading in Tough Times
A one-day workshop introducing educators to approaches for personal and professional renewal and to practical applications that bring reflection and mindfulness into classrooms and support the building of relational trust in the adult school community.

• Courage in Schools Leadership Team Year
Courage in Schools Leadership Team is a yearlong professional development experience designed to build school leadership teams' capacity to facilitate the strengthening of the adult community in their institutions.

• Courage to Teach®
Courage to Teach® is a program of stand-alone retreats or quarterly series for the personal and professional renewal of educators. Courage to Teach focuses on renewing the inner lives of professionals in education.  

• Courage to Lead® 
Courage to Lead supports school leaders (principals, deans, department heads, teacher leaders, etc.) in sustaining and renewing their passion, enthusiasm, and commitment to school leadership and to the communities they serve. 

• Professional development collaborations

Courage in Schools partners with individual elementary schools, middle and high schools, entire school districts, and institutions of higher education to design and provide professional development days or series tailored to the needs of your particular situation. We welcome inquiries about professional development that will meet your needs.

• Presentations & keynotes

Courage & Renewal facilitators with frontline experience in education are available to present at local, regional and national conferences with interest in the approaches available through Courage in Schools.  

For more information, contact us at info@CourageNE.org.

¹ Palmer, Parker J. Healing the heart of Democracy: The Courage to Create a Politics Worthy of the Human Spirit. San Francisco. Jossey-Bass. 2011.

² Bryk, Anthony S., and Barbara Schneider. Trust in Schools: A Core Source for Improvement. New York. Russell Sage Foundation. 2002. & Bryk, et.al. Organizing Schools for Improvement: Lessons from Chicago. University of Chicago Press. 2010