Parker Palmer

I feel sorry for teachers who are required to spell out precise “learning objectives” long before a class begins so that they can measure their own “effectiveness.” I feel sorry for their students, too. Education dominated by preconceived images of what must be learned can hardly be educational. Authentic teaching and learning requires a live encounter with the unexpected. An element of suspense and surprise, an evocation of that which we did not know until it happened. If these elements are not present, we may be training or indoctrinating students, but we are not educating them. In any arena of action-rearing children, counseling people, repairing machines, writing books-right action depends on yielding our images of particular outcomes to the organic realities of ourselves, the other, and the adventure of action itself. (from 'The Active Life') - Parker Palmer