Abstract
Enacting a Pedagogy of Kindness presents a range of voices from educators who practice a pedagogy of kindness (PoK) in their tertiary classrooms, learning environments, or institutions. Each of the ten chapters in this edited volume exemplifies this pedagogical practice, either through teacher reflections and/or teaching practice advice, and demonstrates the impact of this pedagogy on students, on oneself as an educator, on colleagues both academic and professional, and/or on the institution of higher education. Exploring varied contexts of implementation, the ten chapters cover topics such as course and curriculum design, assessment design and delivery, online teaching environments, supervision of graduate students and peer mentoring, diversity and difference, institutions and the neoliberal values that have come to often underpin them, and the exercise of self-compassion.
The volume opens with a brief summary of the pedagogy of kindness and relevant scholarship, Grant and Pittaway’s reflections on PoK as practitioners, and a useful precis of the volume’s contents. Enacting a Pedagogy of Kindness is bookended with a challenge to educators to reflect on what might be lost or gained from the ‘subversive’ act of embracing a pedagogy of kindness. The basis of Grant and Pittaway’s claim that a pedagogy of kindness is subversive is the belief that it “can pave the way for a more inclusive, just and compassionate educational landscape that has the power to transform lives” (p. 6). The volume is therefore positioned as not merely a suite of teacher practitioner reflections but an incitement to readers to realise the goals of a transformative education for students through kindness. This is sorely needed in higher education, according to Grant and Pittaway, since without kindness “teaching runs the risk of becoming mechanical and dehumanised” (p. 1).
One of the limitations of the volume is its theoretical footing. The concept of kindness in teaching and learning is not presented in terms of a set of necessary and sufficient conditions. Perhaps such an account cannot be given in these terms since what it means to be kind will vary according to context. Yet this leaves the reader without a clear grasp of what kindness entails and how it relates to other relational values such as respect and care that are also important in educational contexts (see Clegg & Rowland, 2010 for this discussion). It is equally unclear whether kindness should be conceived as part of an educators’ best practice or whether it is supererogatory, defined as going above and beyond what is required by an educator in a classroom or institutional environment. A version of this is expressed by Janowick in chapter ten: “[n]one of us called it the pedagogy of kindness; we mostly thought of it as good teaching” (p. 122). Indeed, this point is made in an earlier paper by Clegg and Rowland wherein they write “we are seeking to elucidate a quality that is already there in good teaching, but is unremarked and under threat” (2010, p. 720).
Throughout the volume, authors repeat Denial’s (2019) assertation that the pedagogy of kindness involves “believing students and believing in them”. It is not until chapter five by Overgaard et al. and chapter eight by Payne and Clemons that we read an evaluation of this idea: “But what does that mean in actual practice, right? … How can you show up for these other human beings in a particular way that are developing their own social consciousness and their own social being?” (p. 91). For Payne and Clemons, a response to these questions begins with establishing a culture of inquiry in which educators “challenge their own beliefs, pedagogies and policies as they engage with every student they encounter” (p. 91). Just as an educator must nurture a culture of student inquiry, a PoK requires educators themselves to participate in a culture of questioning with the goal of coming to know their students. Only this, according to Payne and Clemons, will transform the pedagogy of kindness from a theory into a practice.
The strongest chapters of the book utilise the teaching reflections they present to articulate meaningful actions and practices that can be adopted by educators interested in enacting a kind pedagogy. Chapter four by Galvin presents a framework for learning design that embodies PoK principles while in chapter seven, Creely presents insights about fostering a supportive learning environment that enables students to take risks, be creative, and fail productively. A practical approach is also visible, as I mentioned above, in excellent chapters from Overgaard et al. (chapter five) and Payne and Clemons (chapter eight). The goal of Overgaard et al., for example, is to present a range of kind strategies suitable for the varied contexts that are presented in their chapter. These, they write, can be “use[d], adapt[ed], or reject[ed] depending on context” (p. 51). In the final chapter of the collection, Borthwick et al. share case studies and a set of principles for enacting care and kindness both for students and for educators.
In Enacting a Pedagogy of Kindness, Grant and Pittaway have brought together 22 authors from a range of teaching contexts in, mostly, the anglophone world. Scholars from Australia are particularly well represented in the collection’s pages. The volume is an achievement as the first of its kind to bring together practitioners of the PoK to share their practice and reflections. It presents insights for educators interested in this emerging pedagogical style and shows us the opportunities that exist for deepening PoK’s practical and theoretical foundations. More than this, it is inspiring to read.
