In Heart at the Center: An Educator’s Guide to Sustaining Love, Hope, and Community Through Nonviolence Pedagogy, high school English teacher Mike Tinoco of California explores how classrooms can be reimaged as spaces of love, healing, and resistance to violence. Drawing on nonviolence traditions, he offers practical approaches in creating environments grounded in justice, community, and self-care.
NEA Today caught up with Tinoco to talk about how educators can rethink classroom management, embrace conflict as growth, and integrate love into the curriculum.
What inspired you to write “Heart at the Center,” and what led you to focus on nonviolence pedagogy in particular?
Mike Tinoco: As a nonviolence trainer, I’ve led many workshops and talks over the years. Frequently, educators would tell me they felt inspired and would ask where they could learn more. While I would direct them to various resources on Nonviolent Communication (NVC) and Kingian Nonviolence, I did not know of a comprehensive resource on nonviolence pedagogy. This nagged at me.
There were some journal articles and books that explored some nonviolence practices in education (for example, mindfulness, peacemaking, restorative justice, etc.), but I couldn’t find anything that focused on a multi-faceted, holistic approach to nonviolence within and beyond the classroom. I realized that there was a dire need for such a resource, and I felt compelled to write the kind of book I wished was available when I started teaching.
Can you explain what "nonviolence pedagogy" means, and how it contrasts with traditional models of education?
MT: I view nonviolence pedagogy as a holistic way of embodying and practicing nonviolence in classrooms and adjacent spaces. The word nonviolence, as a noun, entails practice, philosophy, and tradition. It is not just about mediating conflicts or practicing mindfulness; it is a multi-faceted approach to integrating nonviolence, e.g., relationally, in our classroom content, in our practices for self-care and collective care, in how we relate to time, navigate suffering, create professional development, attend to needs, and more.
Certainly, there is considerable overlap between nonviolence and other important approaches common in schools today, such as social emotional learning, mindfulness, and restorative justice. Many schools are doing wonderful things with these and similar approaches. I think what sets nonviolence apart is that it uncompromisingly centers relationality and seeks to disrupt all forms of violence and harm. Nonviolence is a spiritual, emotional, intellectual, and physical way of being; it is not a program, nor can it be reduced to quick fixes.
Moreover, the means must be consistent with the ends. If our goal is, for example, to create loving communities grounded in humanizing each other, then our practices, systems, and policies must align with that goal. We cannot proclaim to be about nonviolence if, say, power is weaponized and people’s needs are ignored.
In your book, you mention integrating love, hope, and community into the classroom and share some students’ stories. How can educators foster these values on a daily basis, especially in challenging environments?
MT: The beauty of nonviolence is that the practice itself nourishes love, fuels hope, and sustains community. It has never felt like something extra for me because it is integrated into how I teach (and parent and live). Nonviolence allows me to more easily withstand adversity and see conflict as opportunities to strengthen and potentially transform relationships.
As for the idea of challenging environments—on the one hand, that is relative. What may be challenging for a teacher in a Title I school serving primarily BIPOC students in a high-poverty community will be different from the struggles faced by a teacher in a well-resourced, high-performing school in an affluent community. Some educators experience compounding, acute challenges that significantly affect their teaching, working conditions, and well-being.
That said, even on the best of days, all educators, regardless of where they teach, are confronted with myriad challenges, especially right now. No one has it easy. But we can weather and address the problems we face more easily when we have the capacity, strength, and fire to confront them. Nonviolence is life-affirming energy that replenishes and fortifies us.
You share personal stories and examples from civil rights leaders in the book. How have those stories shaped your approach to teaching and nonviolence education?
MT: The stories of freedom fighters from the civil rights movement, especially those of unsung heroes and heroines, are such a gift. I am profoundly inspired by their holding to a vision of, and being committed to creating, a world that did not yet exist. A world grounded in a vision of a beloved community. A vision guided by deep faith that their efforts would create transformative change, even if that change did not always happen immediately. Despite the brutal violence of white supremacy, these freedom fighters embodied values that informed their worldview—and upheld these values in how they organized, engaged in nonviolent direct action, and took care of themselves. They provide a viable model of how to stay engaged and keep our flames aglow.
When I remain tethered to hope, I have more capacity to stay in the struggle and have faith that my and other educators’ efforts are not in vain. There’s humility in recognizing that all of the changes we are fighting for might not happen tomorrow—or even during our lifetime. But maintaining a long-term view, while doing everything we can in the present moment to create the kind of world we dream of, can and must happen in tandem.
In what ways can educators embed love into their curriculum without it feeling like an add-on or an afterthought?
MT: One of the ways this can be done is by creating ongoing opportunities for students to write about, affirm, and share their stories. Joy is our birthright, and students deserve to see how the content they are learning can be infused in who they are and want to become.
My dear friend, mentor, and NVC teacher Dr. Roxy Manning says, “Attending to needs is how we show love, and love for self validates our needs.” I find this a helpful way of thinking about love in the context of the classroom. When we embed opportunities for students to attend to their individual and collective needs—such as expression, being seen/heard, companionship, purpose, achievement, among others—we support them in loving themselves. In this way, self-love is a practice we intentionally cultivate rather than a “thing” we put in the curriculum.
The concept of "voluntary suffering" is introduced in your book. How do you interpret this idea?
MT: I think it’s first important to make a distinction between involuntary and voluntary suffering. Drawing from the civil rights era, Black people endured very real psychological and bodily harm and suffering in their day-to-day lives. They did not choose to be terrorized by lynchings, segregation, and other forms of racist violence. When it came to engaging in nonviolent direct action, however, many activists willingly put their bodies on the line for the sake of freedom.
For example, during the lunch counter sit-in movement in Nashville, Bernard LaFayette, one of the co-founders of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, along with John Lewis, Diane Nash, and others, were willing to suffer when protesting because they believed that doing so would engender sympathy, garner mass support for their cause, and ultimately result in systemic and social change. LaFayette once said, “I had already given my life to the movement. They can’t take from you what you’ve already given away.” LaFayette and others viewed their suffering as a form of empowerment, a catalyst for change, and a way of meeting their individual and collective needs for hope, freedom, and community. It was a spiritually liberating force. That said, no one was pressured to endure such suffering; the student activists honored people’s choice.
How can voluntary suffering empower educators without overwhelming them or compromising their well-being?
In the context of schools, it’s no surprise that many teachers (and students) are suffering right now, especially those being impacted by anti-trans legislation, censorships, book bans, and the like. But even for folks in areas not directly impacted by such assaults, even in the best of days, almost anyone committed to anti-oppressive, liberatory, humanizing pedagogy is going to endure some degree of suffering.
What I find helpful about the idea of voluntary suffering is that it allows us to retain our power and have choice. When we do something out of a sense of obligation, that is, when we feel as though we “have to” do x, y, and z, then we inadvertently give some of our power away. In contrast, when we have clarity about needs we are consciously attending to, we empower ourselves, which I find liberating. For example, there are teachers who are putting their jobs on the line to teach the raw truth of history. Doing so likely meets needs for integrity, purpose, and supporting students’ understanding of the world, among other needs.
This is not about suffering endlessly in order to make up for systemic failings and oppressive policy; it is about recognizing that organizing and resisting is collective work that takes time—and, in the interim, we have some degree of choice about how to experience the suffering we face. But we must make sure that we are not suffering to the point of agony, where our spiritual, emotional, mental, and/or physical well-being become diminished. We must ensure that we are caring for ourselves and each other.
Taking care of ourselves while fighting for justice is a delicate balance. In “Heart at the Center,” you explore how educators can slow down without compromising their sense of urgency. What does self-care look like in the context of a justice-oriented classroom?
MT: In my view, sustainable self-care and collective care, especially for teachers, necessitates slowing down so that we can discern how to act and attend to our needs. So many teachers are incredibly busy, stressed, and stretched thin, and for understandable reasons; they are not asking for things to be this way.
But if we do not pause, breathe, and have clarity about our needs, we risk operating from a place of anxiety and panic. In doing so, we lose touch with our needs and run on autopilot. The pace of school is unnecessarily frenetic and harmful to educators, students, and administrators. That is why I believe it is incumbent upon us to shift away from cramming, rushing, and feeling as though we must do it all and, instead, normalize moving at a pace more aligned to the breath.
There is also an urgency to respond to moments of crises and harm; if we move too slowly, little will change. But we are better able to act when we are well in mind, body, heart, and spirit and have capacity to do so.
Finally, for educators who are just beginning to think about incorporating nonviolence pedagogy into their work, what’s one piece of advice you would give them to start their journey?
MT: I would say to think about the vision you hold for the kind of classrooms and schools you dream of. Undergirding your vision are core needs—life-affirming energy drawing you toward that which you yearn for.
When we hold firmly to our vision and care for our needs, we can remain creative, hopeful, and connected to the heart.
