| Chapter 2: | The Shadowy Edges of the Path: Shifting Power From the Teacher to the Students |
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At the foundation of my pedagogy is my own work on developing myself as a person. The widely revered wisdom in teaching circles is that we teach who we are (Palmer, 1998). I believe that this is so, and consequently, the most important qualification of being an educator is to work on ourselves in the service of feeling fully alive and becoming increasingly authentic3 as an individual and in relationships. Before I go into talking about the educator’s work, I wish to address the theme of wounding and education. I will use my own life as a case study and an illustration.
Peter Schellenbaum (1988/1990) says:
Schellenbaum goes on to talk about various ways in which this wounding manifests itself in individuals and relationships, including addictions, self-defeating behavior, personality traits that serve as defenses against emotions and intimacy, conflictual relationships, and so on.
My own experience of separation from myself and others was seeded early. I was raised mostly by my mother when I was an infant and young child. My father was in the Royal Canadian Air Force. World War II was taking place, and he was away serving his country. My mother was anxious about me, about him, and about life—understandably so. She was a young woman raising her two boys, in effect, as a single mom during wartime. Her attention to me was total but pervaded by her anxiety. Her fears contributed to an unconscious wound in the bond between us. As a result, I was compromised in my ability to feel secure within myself. This was further exacerbated by my father’s emotional limitations when he did return. And then when I was 4, my brother was born. I was no longer number one. In fact, I was a very distant number two as the newcomer’s needs and cuteness dominated my mother’s attention.