Dear Teacher,
Restore & reconnect to the soul of teaching.
“Welcome your spirit back from its wandering. It may return in pieces, in tatters. Gather them together. They will be happy to be found after being lost for so long.” —Joy Harjo, Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings
The Teacher Sanctuary is your on-line refuge, a virtual place to retreat, to reflect, to nurture your own self and your own learning in a soul-full community of fellow educators. This virtual retreat center is a space for restoration and reflection, essentials for going out into the world of your classroom, your school, and your community to do the work you are called to do with students as your best, most vibrant self. Our work is centered in using reading and writing as restorative, healing, creative tools to help us reconnect with our purpose, our why for teaching.
Our virtual retreats cultivate small, intimate, and vibrant on-line learning communities where every participant is seen and heard, where reading and writing are tools for healing, not just academic exercises. Our retreat topics and facilitation aim to live into what bell hooks says about teaching and learning: “To teach in a manner that respects and cares for the souls of our students is essential if we are to provide the necessary conditions where learning can most deeply and intimately begin.” Check out our monthly mini retreats and our extended retreats here.
Libraries are sacred spaces to reconnect to “all our teachers”—past and present. Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop proposes that books can be “mirrors, windows, or sliding doors.” Books can be teachers who reflect back to us who we are and what we value, who help us see through windows into lives different from our own, and who help us take action by stepping from who we used to be into who we want to be. Free, curated collections of readings and writing prompts to support your reflective practices for private, solo retreat time are coming soon. Look here for more details.
Contact
Please complete this form if you would like to receive periodic updates from The Teacher Sanctuary, or if you have any questions, suggestions, or reflections that you would like to share.
Email
amartin@theteachersanctuary.org