A Pedagogy of Kindness

By Eun Sandoval-Lee, Assistant Director of Learning and Teaching

What if kindness were not a ‘soft skill,’ but rather a powerful act of pedagogy? As the first volume in the Teaching, Engaging, and Thriving in Higher Ed Series published by the University of Oklahoma Press, A Pedagogy of Kindness (2024) by historian and educator Dr. Catherine J. Denial posits kindness not merely as a characteristic of personality but a conscious approach to learning and teaching. Denial distinguishes kindness from niceness, framing it as a challenge to both individual behaviors and institutional norms in higher education—grounded in compassion and committed to justice.

In the introduction, Denial emphasizes the ways in which kindness differs from niceness, which she defines as “being agreeable in all circumstances, of masking disagreement, of refusing to ripple the waters in our institutions and professions.” Kindness, in contrast, means exercising integrity and honesty, and it “necessitates tough conversations.”

In a discussion of things that radically changed her own pedagogy, Denial focuses on intergroup dialogue (IGD), which personally and professionally resonates with my understanding of why practicing kindness matters in colleges and universities. This connection is especially meaningful to me as an educational developer, since my own academic roots stem from being a trained undergraduate peer facilitator in the University of Michigan’s Program on Intergroup Relations—the same program where the author attended a four-day workshop on IGD in 2013.

More than a form of communication, dialogue—differing from debate or discussion—is, as Denial describes, an “experiential form of learning” that “demands vulnerability” as “a place where you risk trust very quickly, and where hard truths are told.” To this end, facilitating kindness is critical for engaging students in learning with and from their peers in a classroom environment, especially when the fulcrum of course content centers on difference—symbolic or material—that reflects historical or contemporary socio-political conflict.

Kindness in the classroom, even in times of disagreement, and especially in times of suffering, is a discipline of choosing empathy and, as Denial writes, the radical act of “believing in others.” This introduction scaffolds the stage for Chapter 1, where Denial explores what it means and why it matters to extend kindness inward first.

Kindness Begins with the Self

In the first chapter, "Kindness toward the Self," Denial urges that educators must extend kindness inward to be authentically kind to students, resisting productivity for its own sake or martyrdom fueled by an unfair race towards burnout. The author takes to task the notion of self-care in service to capitalism and describes kindness toward the self as building capacity for “reconciliation, forgiveness, and accountability.” Denial offers an exercise, adapted from an activity at the 2013 workshop on IGD, to better know ourselves through reflecting on the social identities we think about most and least. The section on Boundaries as the Bedrock of Kindness provides concrete imperatives for showing kindness to ourselves as educators, including:

Invest in your pedagogical development.
Take time off from email.
Take time off from work.
Think creatively about your commute.
Schedule time for eating and rest.
Build catch-up days into your courses.
Guard your yes.
Refuse to go it alone.

Denial closes the chapter with a critical caveat: When Self-Care Is Not the Answer, reminding readers that individual efforts of self-care are not enough. She references examples of how institutions might establish “a collective ethos of care,” based on “a foundation of genuine respect” and responsiveness to inequities faced by faculty across multiple, intersecting identities and longstanding professional hierarchies.

The Course Syllabus as a Site of Care

Chapter 2,“Kindness and the Syllabus,” discusses reimagining the syllabus not only as a contract but as a relational tool to build a foundation of transparency and trust or, as Denial puts it, as “invitations to step into new worlds.” The author suggests specific strategies to do so, such as changing the tone, building in flexibility, and co-creating expectations with students. In the section Who Is the Student You’re Imagining As You Write?, Denial shares a personal journey of coming to find how language affects the degree of welcome a student may feel in a course, whether in regard to communication, academic integrity, or attendance policies. For example, the author illustrates how even small changes in syllabus language can affect students’ sense of belonging. She offers a comparison of syllabus contact information from 2017 to a more recent version (see Figure 1).

Professor: Cate Denial

Office: [building and room number]

Office Phone: [number and extension]

Office Hours: Tuesday and Wednesday, 11am-noon

Email: cdenial@knox.edu (9am to 9pm, except 5pm Friday to 5pm Sat.)

Hi, I’m Cate Denial, and I’ll be your professor this term. Welcome to the class! My pronouns are she/her/hers.

📧 You can reach me by email: cdenial@knox.edu

I’m available by email from 9am-8pm M-Th and 9am to 4pm on Friday.

Saturdays and Sundays are my recharge days, so I will occasionally check my email, but cannot guarantee you a quick reply on those days.

☕ Student Hours:

My student hours are from noon to 1pm on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and I am delighted to meet with you over Zoom at other times. Just email me to make an appointment.

Figure 1. Syllabus contact information from 2017 (left) to current (right).

Denial prompts educators to include information on resources to support students’ academic success and access to basic needs, including:

Resources for students who are hungry or lack shelter.
Resources for students who lack a computer or internet connection.
Resources for students — beyond the first-line help you can provide — who are struggling with planning, organization, content comprehension, research, writing, and understanding a professor’s feedback.
Resources for students who have experience discrimination, harassment, and assault based on any protected category.
Resources for students experiencing physical and/or mental health challenges.
Resources for students with disabilities.

In this chapter, Denial also shares a list of reflection questions that ultimately address an important prompt for educators to consider in teaching any course or facilitating any content: “If I want to end up there, what do we have to do here?” As the author describes,

Learning goals, as they’re known in most of academia, are sometimes fraught concepts connected to the assessment demands of our institutions and the accreditation agencies that look at the books once every ten years. Under certain circumstances they can feel artificial and forced or overly prescriptive, preventing students from discovering their own agendas for their learning. Still, I’ve come to think of learning goals as a helpful map that can guide students—who can absolutely decide the route—to a particular destination.

To this end, clarifying course objectives provides structure to students who need it and, as the author puts it, “eyes on the horizon...of what we hope to achieve.”

Denial specifically addresses accessibility of syllabi design—font choice for digital readability, for example. This part reminded me of the seven core skills for creating accessible content on Canvas course sites to meet digital accessibility policies and standards at Northwestern. Denial concludes this chapter with one more suggested change to practicing kindness through our syllabi—namely, co-creating them with students.

Such changes might challenge some of what we as educators find comforting in familiar syllabus design; they might also inspire us to reconsider the ways in which an otherwise seemingly innocuous, inconsequential document can serve as a vital resource for building relationships between students and content, students and students, students and instructors.

In the realm of scholarship of teaching and learning (or SoTL), A Pedagogy of Kindness offers both a philosophical reorientation as well as practical insights, calling kindness to the forefront of inclusive pedagogy.

Published Wednesday, September 24, 2025.