Product reviews for The Kindness Principle

Perhaps one of the greatest mistakes we can make in education is to see the virtue of kindness as somehow irrelevant or, worse still, weak. What Dave Whitaker's beautiful book shows us is that the opposite is true. If the aim is to build what he calls a -˜no excuses, plenty of fear' regime, then the goals you can achieve are far more limited. Certain targets can be dutifully met, or even exceeded, through a mixture of extrinsic motivation and -˜punitive consistency' - but is that alone our greatest ambition for our children? Can we not be more courageous, with ambition for intrinsically motivated learners? For staff and students to be part of a thriving and emotionally intelligent community? That goal requires far greater courage, patience and relational skills. But the gold it can uncover is priceless. It also gives students a better chance of being responsible leaders of their own lives. If we have given up on trying to find and nurture that potential in every young person, then we have surely lost our way. The Kindness Principle is the book of a dedicated educator, who has the courage to relentlessly pursue a kinder path.