Welcome to Season 9 of Dead Ideas in Teaching and Learning! In this season, with our new host Columbia CTL Executive Director Amanda Irvin, we are exploring the dead idea that the world “outside” of the classroom doesn’t or shouldn’t influence the world “inside” the classroom—that students are exclusively intellectual beings when they step across the threshold (physical or virtual) of the classroom space. 

In our first episode we speak with guest Cate Denial, the Bright Distinguished Professor of American History and Director of the Bright Institute at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois, and author of the book A Pedagogy of Kindness (2024). Cate’s new book argues for the strength and capacity instructors and students gain when they meet each other as whole human beings. Dr. Denial discusses her book and shares suggestions for instructors everywhere on how to implement a pedagogy of kindness in their own classrooms. 

Resource: A Pedagogy of Kindness (2024) by Cate Denial