Being Kind Is a Teacher Strength

Hey, Teachers!

We know there is a lot to talk about and consider as teachers in 2026, including how we're reframing our instructional approaches and inherent outreach to students to ensure positive learning outcomes amidst today's teaching challenges. The educational landscape doesn't look the same as it did even five years ago, and for veteran teachers like me, it certainly doesn't look like the 1990s.

But our students are still our students.

And they consistently teach us how to teach them.

Sometimes, "being kind" carries a negative connotation: we're not preparing our students for the real world if we offer "second chances"; we're not emphasizing rules the way we should so students know how the real world works; we're "too easy" on students these days; students are walking all over us; or we don't expect enough from our students.

Although some of this may be true (and maybe all of it) depending on the classroom and who's running it, being a kind teacher is not the culprit. A kind teacher is one who remains enthusiastic about teaching and learning; has a genuine interest in student growth; shows care and concern for individual students; is flexible (and firm, when necessary, in setting boundaries and consequences); sees students as people first; isn't punitive for the sake of being so; feels the weight and sadness when students fail; does everything possible to reach each and every learner in the group; has an inviting teaching and learning space (whether working with abundant or limited resources); seeks to understand; listens well; and is willing to change direction based on classroom needs while aligning instructional decision-making to overarching state, department, and/or grade level goals.

Our professional identity (teacher self-image) sets the stage for the beliefs and values we underscore as practitioners in instruction (and in new professional learning), apart from the must-haves or mandates that dictate the rollout of curriculum and assessment. Students can feel our intentions and our purpose–and sometimes, the "hard to reach" students are resisting us because no one cared about them before.

Is kindness part of that inner dialogue and self-repertoire?

Are we being kind to ourselves before we step foot in the classroom?

When we're too punitive, too cutthroat, overtly unhappy in our careers, just counting the days until retirement, doing less instead of more when opportunities for positive influence arise, dismissing students' cries for help, and their apathy, or isolation, choosing to ruminate over what we can't control or change, contributing to staff culture in ways that diminish hope in the field, and losing sight of "education" within "school", we're losing sight of what teaching means.

Kind teachers see gardens in the classroom. Kind teachers water those gardens and hope for flourishing. When kind teachers get hurt, criticized, and rejected, targeted, put-down, or ridiculed, they choose resilience.

It's not easy being a teacher. We're tasked with increased personal and professional struggles, our climates are uncertain, and our plates are stacked high with tasks we work hard to complete.

Some teachers choose to leave because the burdens outweigh the rewards.

Taking an inward lens on the tone we're setting in our classrooms is paramount to good teaching. Although many aspects of teaching in public school can threaten our emotional and physical stability and sense of safety, if we're staying in the profession, I believe being kind is a non-negotiable.

If we want to teach our students to thrive as kind human beings, to magnify all the SEL language and activities we include in a week, kindness must fill the room at the helm.

That doesn't mean we aren't centered, structured, organized, or hold students accountable for actions and behaviors (both positive and negative).

It means we're focused more on the good we can do than the tough terrain we might be navigating.