Heart at the Center

In Heart at the Center: An Educator’s Guide to Sustaining Love, Hope, and Community Through Nonviolence Pedagogy, high school teacher Mike Tinoco examines what it means to reimagine classrooms and schools as spaces that humanize, resist violence and injustice, and center love.

Offering both a framework and a set of practices that are grounded in different nonviolence traditions, Heart at the Center asks readers to consider what a pedagogy of nonviolence looks like, sounds like, and feels like in the classroom.

Written with warmth, expertise, and humility, Mike Tinoco invites us into his classroom, drawing on stories from his own life and powerful examples from civil rights movement leaders to explore questions such as:

• How do we create classrooms and schools that are grounded in needs and match our vision for the kind of world we dream of?
• How can we challenge conventional classroom management practices, welcome conflict, and nurture relationships with and amongst our students to foster positive peace?
• How can we embed love in our curriculum and be inclusive of our students’ lives, centering community, healing, and justice?
• How can we slow down and take care of ourselves without compromising the urgency to fight for justice? When can voluntary suffering meet our needs and empower us?
• How can educators navigate conflict, build community with one another, and create their own professional development opportunities that support collective care?

Heart at the Center is a book for educators who believe that a different kind of classroom, a different kind of school, and a different kind of world are possible.