July 30, 2024
Back to school, with kindness
Why not be kind?
This deceptively simple question transformed Catherine J. Denialās entire approach to teaching. It also provides the impetus for her compelling, revolutionary, hot-off-the-presses book, , which I just completed. I, too, now feel transformedāand inspired to share some of her ideas as a new academic year rapidly approaches.
I was introduced to Denialās brilliance when I had the pleasure of for , a podcast I produced in collaboration with the Taylor Institute. A Pedagogy of Kindness feels like the perfect read for our current moment: this strange, almost liminal āpost-COVIDā era, wherein many dimensions of our lives and broader social worlds may feel endlessly heavy and fraught. We can, perhaps, feel how profoundly the landscape of teaching and learning has shifted, but we might still find ourselves trying to process how itās changed, how we should respond, and how we can best work in collaboration with each other and our students to move forward with care and courage.
Kindness, Denial emphasizes, is central to this project. Importantly, Denialās version of kindness should not be confused with ābeing niceāāāof being agreeable in all circumstances, of masking disagreement, of refusing to ripple the waters in our institutions and professions.ā Kindness, on the other hand, "is real, itās honest, and it demands integrity. Kindness necessitates tough conversations. ā¦ Itās about reorienting ourselves to a new way of thinking so that it strips away much of the burdensome work weāve been imposing on ourselves for so long. ā¦ Itās about attending to justice, believing people, and believing in people. Itās a discipline."
Denial organizes her book into four chapters, each of which puts kindness into dialogue with a particular dimension of teaching and learning. I thought I would share some of my key takeaways from these chapters with hope that you, too, might find some inspiration within them.
Kindness toward the Self
In this chapter, Denial returns us to the idea that caring for ourselves is vital if we want to care for others, including our colleagues and students. Boundaries (around email, work hours, and the moments when we choose to say āyesā) are important, but one practice that Iāve also adopted in recent years is to build what Denial calls ācatch-up daysā into syllabi: flexible, unprogrammed time that can be used for slowing down, processing events outside of the classroom, or just taking a mental health break.
Kindness and the Syllabus
Denial challenges us to thoughtfully consider the language of our course outlines. Do syllabi offer generous invitations into learning, or do they tend to focus on consequences for potential future actions? How might we work to build trust with our students instead of communicating that we anticipate their wrongdoing? We might also contemplate, for example, an exercise where we invite students into our courses by way of .
Kindness and Assessment
As a scholar of English literature, one passage from this chapter strongly resonated with me: āIt has taken academia yearsāand it is an ongoing processāto reveal peopleās assumptions about who gets to participate in academic spaces based on the expectation that knowledge should be written down.ā How might we give students multiple options for telling stories about their learning? If our discipline prefers a particular medium of communication, are we dedicating enough time to teaching that medium as we are the other content of our course? Additionally, we might consider experimenting with a in assignment design.
Kindness in the Classroom
Denial points out that post-secondary education is often structured around a āhidden curriculum,ā āa set of presumptions about who should be in collegeā and the knowledge, skills, and experiences these students are presumed to have. Particularly in first-year courses, for example, students might not have experience balancing class attendance with study, reading, work, family, and other commitments. Consider sharing resources that might support them in , , or taking care of themselves in times of .
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Denialās book features many useful resources in addition to those Iāve highlighted above. Related to kindness, teaching, and learning, Iād also strongly recommend the Taylor Instituteās excellent resources on , (including alternative assessment strategies), and (including tools for creating accessible course content, inclusive course outlines, and universal design for learning).
āWhy not be a kind?ā is a question Iāll be carrying with me into this academic year as an intentionāa guide for all of my interactions and connections, both personal and professional. I invite you to join me!
Dr. Derritt Mason, PhD, is the Acting Senior Director for the Taylor Institute for Teaching and Learning for 2024ā25. They are an associate professor in the Department of English, where their primary teaching and research areas are childrenās and young adult literature, gender and sexuality, and cultural studies. He is also the creator of the peer-reviewed podcast 3QTL: Three Questions About Teaching and Learning.