草莓污视频导航

July 30, 2024

Back to school, with kindness

Derritt Mason reflects on kindness in teaching and learning before a new academic year starts.
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Why not be kind?

This deceptively simple question transformed Catherine J. Denial鈥檚 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 transformed鈥攁nd inspired to share some of her ideas as a new academic year rapidly approaches.

I was introduced to Denial鈥檚 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 鈥減ost-COVID鈥 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 it鈥檚 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, Denial鈥檚 version of kindness should not be confused with 鈥渂eing nice鈥濃斺渙f being agreeable in all circumstances, of masking disagreement, of refusing to ripple the waters in our institutions and professions.鈥 Kindness, on the other hand, "is real, it鈥檚 honest, and it demands integrity. Kindness necessitates tough conversations. 鈥 It鈥檚 about reorienting ourselves to a new way of thinking so that it strips away much of the burdensome work we鈥檝e been imposing on ourselves for so long. 鈥 It鈥檚 about attending to justice, believing people, and believing in people. It鈥檚 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 鈥榶es鈥) are important, but one practice that I鈥檝e also adopted in recent years is to build what Denial calls 鈥渃atch-up days鈥 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: 鈥淚t has taken academia years鈥攁nd it is an ongoing process鈥攖o reveal people鈥檚 assumptions about who gets to participate in academic spaces based on the expectation that knowledge should be written down.鈥 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 鈥渉idden curriculum,鈥 鈥渁 set of presumptions about who should be in college鈥 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 .

Denial鈥檚 book features many useful resources in addition to those I鈥檝e highlighted above. Related to kindness, teaching, and learning, I鈥檇 also strongly recommend the Taylor Institute鈥檚 excellent resources on , (including alternative assessment strategies), and (including tools for creating accessible course content, inclusive course outlines, and universal design for learning).

鈥淲hy not be a kind?鈥 is a question I鈥檒l be carrying with me into this academic year as an intention鈥攁 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 2024鈥25. They are an associate professor in the Department of English, where their primary teaching and research areas are children鈥檚 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.