The Power of Humane Education

Image courtesy of soot+chalk via Creative Commons.

For my blog post today, I’m sharing a recent post I wrote for Care2.com, an online community for people passionate about creating a better world. Here’s an excerpt from "The Power of Humane Education":

"It really doesn’t take much to ignite a passion for good among youth and adults alike. A week of [teaching humane education] classes turned an eighth grade that, on Monday, did not feel particularly moved to action or responsible for helping to create a more just and humane world, into a deeply caring group that eagerly embraced a project to make a difference by Friday. I witnessed this transformation as each day brought out even more of the compassion and kindness they had identified on day one as qualities that were most important to them.

"What is harder than sparking concern, care, and commitment is sustaining and nurturing this energy; providing the breadth and depth of accurate information about entrenched and pervasive challenges; and teaching them critical and creative thinking skills so that they remain the bedrock of each individual’s approach to healthy, positive, wise changemaking for all.

"The issues that humane education addresses are complex, covering human rights, animal protection and environmental preservation. The solutions to the interconnected – and sometimes conflicting – problems in the world aren’t easy to determine or implement. A week-long humane education course may seem life-changing, but for many that change may fade unless it is fostered and nourished."

Read the complete post.


For a humane world,

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of Most Good, Least Harm, Above All, Be Kind, and The Power and Promise of Humane Education
My TEDx talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach"

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FREE Professional Development for "Green" Educators: Environmental Education Webinars from Green Teacher Magazine

If you're a "green" teacher looking for environmental education ideas and resources to integrate into your classroom and school community, be sure to check out Green Teacher's free series of webinars. The webinars are each an hour long and are part presentation, part Q and A on a variety of environmental topics. Some of the topics for winter/spring 2012 include:

• using nature journals;
• engaging culturally diverse audiences;
• creating forest kindergartens;
• exploring place-based education;
• teaching about climate change.

Past webinars are available to everyone for a month after the class, and to Green Teacher subscribers for an unlimited time.

Find out more.

~ Marsha

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Grants for Graduate Students Passionate About Animals

Helping animals just because we want to is awesome, and being able to help animals AND getting funding to do so is a bonus! Current graduate students who are passionate about helping animals can apply for an Animal Welfare Trust internship grant, which will help fund either an independent student research project, or an internship (that would otherwise be unpaid) with an established animal protection organization. Grants are generally around $5,000.

To apply, students:

• Must be a graduate student at the time of the application and for the duration of the proposed internship;
• Must have a demonstrated interest in animal welfare; 
• Internship funding must be for an independent project approved by and under the supervision of a university professor or for an unpaid position within an established organization; 
• Internships can be for a summer, semester or year-long duration.

The Animal Welfare Trust is devoted to helping all animals, but they're especially interested in projects focused on humane education, farmed animal issues, and/or pro-vegetarian campaigns.

The deadline to apply is March 1, 2012.

Find out more.

~ Marsha

(h/t to Our Hen House)

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Why We Need Humane Education: Books & Mexican American Studies Banned in AZ

Image courtesy of Rethinking Schools.

In 2010 Arizona passed a law that "authorizes the state superintendent to stop any ethnic studies classes that promote the overthrow of the U.S. government, promote resentment toward a race or class of people, are designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group or advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals." In the last couple of weeks, there has been a lot of fall out from the Tucson school district's decision to suspend its Mexican American Studies (MAS) program in order to avoid being financially penalized. As part of the program's suspension, the district has also decided to "confiscate" seven books from the curriculum and to ask that the other nearly 50 titles used in the MAS program be removed from classrooms. To find out more, here are a few essays & blog posts worth reading:

"Rethinking Columbus Banned in Tucson" by Bill Bigelow of Rethinking Schools

"Mexican American Studies Department Reading List" by Debbie Reese of American Indians in Children's Literature

"Breaking 'the Madness' of the Tucson Book Ban: Interview with Mexican American Studies Teacher Curtis Acosta on The Tempest" by Jeff Biggers of Huffington Post

"Mexican American Studies: Ban Ban or Bad Class" NPR interview with AZ school superintendent John Huppenthal


One of the purported goals of the law (and of the suspension of the MAS program) is to prevent courses that "promote resentment toward a race or class of people," but given that all instruction and curriculum has some bias, how is it possible to completely avoid teaching something that might not "promote resentment toward a race or class of people"? As NPR interviewer Michel Martin asks:

"... if the provision of the law is that a class can't promote resentment, how would you measure that? I mean, couldn't pretty much anything promote resentment, even if historically true? Like, for example, I mean the Holocaust. You mentioned Mein Kampf. I mean, couldn't you presumably learn about the Holocaust and feel resentment if you were a person of a number of backgrounds? If you were a person of Jewish background? If you were a person of - if you were gay or a lesbian, if you were a disabled person, wouldn't that - I'm just wondering how you can teach something in a manner where you are going to guarantee what a student may or may not feel."

And, from a CNN report: "A witness for the school system argued that teaching students 'historical facts of oppression and racism' was less likely to promote 'racial resentment' -- something specifically banned by the 2010 law -- than ignoring that history."

What's happening in Arizona is a great opportunity for discussion in classrooms, but it's also another example of why humane education is so important. If students aren't taught to think critically and deeply about issues, and to consider broader perspectives, different viewpoints, and their own and others' biases, then they're more likely grow up tied to a narrower, stricter worldview that fears differing perspectives and thoughtful discussion and exploration about difficult issues, and to react to that fear in ways that may harm others.

~ Marsha

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A Prison Without Bars Reminds Us We Can Change Entrenched Systems

Image courtesy of randy OHC via Creative Commons.

For my blog post today, I’m sharing a recent post I wrote for Care2.com, an online community for people passionate about creating a better world. Here’s an excerpt from "A Prison Without Bars Reminds Us We Can Change Entrenched Systems":

"I recently learned about the Bastoy prison in Norway, where 115 prisoners, some of whom are murderers and rapists, live without bars or barbed wire. Set on a one square mile island, the inmates live relatively free lives. While they are not permitted to leave the island and must appear for a head count four times a day, little could stop them if they chose to walk across the frozen ice in the winter, or swim in the summer, to the mainland just two miles away. But in the 20 years this “alternative” prison has existed, they haven’t had anyone leave. Prisoners must apply to Bastoy to live a different sort of prison life, one in which they work (and are paid), are part of a community, grow food, compost, build, cook, do their laundry and live a relatively normal village life. In the evenings, only five guards remain on the island....

"As someone who promotes solutions to complex challenges and solutionary education, I find Norway’s approach intriguing and compelling. If the goal is to provide the most effective, practical, efficient and fiscally wise approach to tackle the thorny problem of criminals and imprisonment, Norway seems to have come up with a positive solution that is cost-effective, positive, successful and humane."

Read the complete essay.


For a humane world,

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of Most Good, Least Harm, Above All, Be Kind, and The Power and Promise of Humane Education
My TEDx talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach"

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Humane Issues in the News

Each week we post links to news about humane education & humane living, and items connected to humane issues, from human rights to environmental preservation, to animal protection, to media, consumerism and culture.


Change.org emerges as influential tool for social change (via Washington Post) (1/24/12)

Sumatran elephants critically endangered (via The Guardian) (1/24/12)

"Supreme Court rejects California anti-animal cruelty law on pigs" (via LA Times) (1/23/12)

Why Apple products aren't made in the U.S. (via NY Times) (1/22/12)

Child slavery and chocolate (via CNN) (1/19/12)

Peter Singer: Dolphins shouldn't be enslaved by U.S. Navy against Iran (commentary) (via The Guardian) (1/19/12)

Obama puts Keystone XL pipeline on hold for now (via NY Times) (1/18/12)

"Education advocates enter the climate tempest" (via Science) (1/17/12)

U.S. to ban import of 4 species of snakes (via Miami-Herald) (1/17/12)


Keep up with more humane issues in the news via our Facebook or Twitter pages.

5 Strategies to Help Bring Humane Education to Schools

With the pressures of standardized testing, common standards, overflowing classrooms and overworked teachers, integrating humane education into the classroom may seem an overwhelming task, especially if you feel resistance from fellow educators and school administrators. But humane education can easily be integrated into most any subject or curriculum. Whether you're a classroom teacher or community educator, there are numerous strategies you can use to help ease the way for bringing humane education into schools. Here are 5.

1. STANDARDS:
   The easiest and most obvious way is to link humane education content to standards. With 45 states having adopted the new "common core standards" they serve as a useful means for integrating humane education into what you're already teaching. Even with strict requirements, educators can integrate humane principles and issues into their work. Teacher Alison Panik, who took our Teaching for a Positive Future online course, started integrating reverence for nature with her required math and science studies. IHE M.Ed. graduate, Christopher Greenslate, wrote an article highlighting how he integrated humane education into his teaching of language arts, including required books like Lord of the Flies. And IHE M.Ed. graduate, Kurt Schmidt has easily found creative ways to integrate humane studies into how he teaches math. If you're a community educator who wants to offer humane education presentations in schools, it's important to familiarize yourself with standards and highlight the strong connections between them and your content.
   
   
2. LAWS:
   Many educators may not know it, but in several states, it's actually the law to include some form of humane education in their teaching (especially for younger students). Laws vary, but several states have some sort of legislation that requires teaching about the welfare of animals, character education, and/or environmental education. HEART keeps an updated list of laws related to humane education.
   
   And, last June, Maryland became the first state to require "environmental literacy" for graduation. Other states have varying requirements for environmental studies. Introducing humane education studies to your school(s) can help the district meet legal requirements.
   
   
3. BY ANY OTHER NAME:
   While we at IHE like to call what we do humane education, what label we use is not as important as the emphasis on the interconnectedness of human rights, animal protection, and environmental preservation and on nurturing solutionaries. Some educators call it global studies; some say social justice; some just call it education. If there's something happening in your district that aligns with humane education principles and content, plug yourself into that. There are also other programs, growing in popularity in schools, that overlap with some of the elements of humane education. Such programs offer an excellent segue for introducing humane education issues and principles. Here are 3 examples:
   
   Character Education
   
   While fewer than half of states either mandate or encourage character education, many districts encourage teaching positive character traits. While character education itself follows a much narrower definition and vision, teaching about values such as responsibility, caring, and respect easily translates to exploring our impact on people, animals & the earth, and what we can do, both individually and systemically, to create a more just, compassionate world for all.
   
   Social Emotional Learning
   
   According to the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning, Social & Emotional Learning, SEL, "teaches the skills we all need to handle ourselves, our relationships, and our work, effectively and ethically." Many schools are beginning to integrate some form of SEL into their curriculum, which provides a great connection to humane education.
   
   Service Learning
   
   Service Learning is another concept that's sweeping classrooms around the world. It varies in scope, but its core focus is bringing what students are learning in the classroom into the real world to address real-life issues and to help students become responsible citizens. Humane education is all about solving real-life problems, so service learning provides a terrific opportunity.
   
   
   
4. CREATIVE OPPORTUNITIES:
   If you want to start small, taking advantage of special school opportunities is a great strategy. If you're a classroom teacher, look for special school-wide events, like celebrations of Earth Day, World Water Week, No Name-Calling Week, or Be Kind to Animals Week to integrate humane education lessons. You may even be able to recruit your colleagues to tweak their own lessons. If you're a community educator, you can find special events as a means to plug in to schools; but also look for career days, speaker series, and other special events to offer yourself as an expert or resource.
   
   
5. START WITH ONE:
   If you're a community educator wanting to get into schools, start by connecting with a friendly teacher who's doing humane education-related work in the classroom or community. Find out what s/he's teaching and customize accordingly. Offer to demonstrate a sample lesson and, if needed, to talk to the school administrator (districts vary as to how much control teachers have over issues like guest speakers). Once you've built one successful relationship, you can branch off from there. Word of mouth is very effective. If you're a classroom teacher, look for one other educator and invite them to collaborate with you on a small project or lesson that embodies humane education. Start with that small success and keep going.

 ~ Marsha

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