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We're very excited to announce that we've launched a new website, which includes a new blog.

Please bookmark our new blog and subscribe via email or the RSS feed, so that you won't miss a thing! See you there!

(We'll be leaving this blog up for awhile to give everyone time to switch.)

~ The IHE staff

Sharing Knowledge - An Act of Love

This post is by contributing blogger Lynne Westmoreland, long-time music instructor and a humane educator. Lynne is a graduate of our M.Ed. program, and is the instructor for our online course, A Better World, A Meaningful Life, which is designed for people who want to put their vision for a better world & a more joyful, examined life into practice.

As humane educators and changemakers, sharing our knowledge with other people can sometimes be difficult or awkward. Often when we tell others about difficult or disturbing topics it seems like we have hit a brick wall. There are so very many challenges in the world today that many people feel a real need to tune out and remain willfully blind to those problems and situations.

Instead of being frustrated with them, remember that they too may care very deeply about what is happening and feel overwhelmed by their own perceived impotence in the face of it. They may not want to hear because they are afraid that if they open their hearts to knowing about cruelty, unfairness, or entrenched systems that exploit or trivialize the earth, animals, and other people, that the grief or frustration will overcome them. If you get a bad reaction, or the person you're trying to communicate with shuts down, be gentle with them and with yourself. Remember back to the time (maybe only a few weeks or days ago) when you did not know something or were not ready to act on what you know.

Having said that, people are often very grateful to have knowledge that they didn't possess. Look for a natural opening in the day's activities or conversations to bring up your topic. Those openings exist everywhere throughout the day, and the more you listen and watch for them, the better you will get at seizing the opportunity to convey what you know. Teachers call these "teachable moments." There are many, many teachable moments every day.

Don't force a topic or bring it up out of nowhere, because doing so can feel artificial or threatening. For example, dinner with your spouse's meat eating family, who is extending hospitality to you with their offering of a meal, probably isn't the best time to impart your knowledge of factory farming. Or when a special someone with whom you have a budding relationship has just given you a Valentine's heart filled with chocolate would probably be the less than optimal time to say "Do you know how much chocolate is sourced using slavery?"

If you share your knowledge out of a heart that simply wants to help and heal our world, your intentions will be clear. Use gentle language; listen to the other person deeply; be compassionate first with them and their fears and protections; listen to your own delivery and try to imagine yourself on the receiving end. Is it useful information? Are you being kind? Is your delivery calm, or are you trying to "convince" them of your opinion?

When I was in residency with my fellow classmates in IHE's master's program, I had an experience that was one of the best learning opportunities I've ever had. We were discussing our frustration and anger over people who "just don't get it" and trying to figure out how to communicate difficult information so that it can be received by the other person. The then Executive Director of IHE said something I will never forget, and which has guided me ever since. He said: "If my agenda is ever anything other than the relationship with the person standing in front of me, I am on the wrong track."

Sharing knowledge, with compassion for the person we are in conversation with, almost always results in an experience that is positive for both people. It may not seem that way even in the moment, but if we are patient and kind, we can open hearts just as ours have been opened.

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5 Tips for Writing the Humane Education Message

This post is by Megan Pincus Kajitani, a writer, humane educator, lifestyle coach, and founder of Giraffe Revolution. We first met Megan when she took our online course, Teaching for a Positive Future. Read more about Megan in our recent interview with her about her humane education work.

I recently wrote a piece for the Huffington Post making the connection between starving California sea lions and our individual ability to help them, by not eating their food supply -- i.e., fish. 

As I was about to hit “submit” on the piece, I took a deep breath, as I knew it could spark some controversy.  And it did, a bit, in the comments, with a few typical flames.  But -- and I really try to focus on this part -- within three days the piece was also “liked” by more than 1,000 readers and “shared” by more than 400. 

What was it about the piece that got 1,000+ people “liking” it?  And how can you make your own writing about humane education issues “well-liked,” whatever arena you’re writing in?

Here are five ways to start with:

1)  Tap Into Your Courage Place

In over 17 years of writing professionally, I’ve found time and again that the more courage it takes me to hit “submit” on a piece, the better received it will be. My nerves usually come from writing about a controversial topic, being raw in my emotions or revealing something about myself I feel vulnerable about. 

Novelist Jessamyn West once said, “Talent is helpful in writing, but guts are absolutely essential.”   Writing about humane education issues takes guts. We’re asking people to rethink their habits, and their thinking. But people are more open to take the risk to change when we are brave with our passion and take risks ourselves in our writing. 

When we tap into our courage place, we’re more inspiring for others to do the same.

2) Make It Personal

It’s the stories, our own stories, that make our writing accessible and relatable to people. We must use them! Our personal experiences, and our personal emotions, go a long way to showing people what living the humane education message looks like. (IHE president Zoe Weil wrote an entire one-woman-show about her personal journey, right?)

I had been wanting to write about the dwindling fish populations in our oceans for some time, and when my kids and I discovered a starving sea lion on our beach, I finally had my story. Same for the humane education-related TEDx talk I wrote last year -- it was my personal experience teaching my kids to make a cruelty-free fruit fly trap that tied the piece together. 

When it comes to writing humane education, go ahead, get personal.

3) Back It Up

Of course, we have to provide some facts and figures behind our personal stories and our emotions to make effective points. The trick is picking the right facts and figures, and the right amount of them. 

My style is usually to start with the personal, then back it up with the facts and figures. In other words, go from the small to the large. However you fit in the facts and figures, think carefully about which ones are likely to make the most impact on your reader (is it a visual, or a shocking statistic?), and don’t overdo it. (And, of course, double-check them!)

Back up your message with just enough data to make your point, but not too much that readers will tune out.

4) Call To Action

Humane education is all about action. Those of us drawn to this field are likely the ones who often ask “What can I do to help this situation?” We want to change the world, we want to do something.

So do our readers. Thus, we simply must include in our every piece of writing a call to action for them. And keep it as simple as possible. One new thing they can do or think about. A clear way they can make a difference in the world.

Leave readers feeling inspired and empowered by clearly telling them a meaningful action they can take, right now.

5) Lean On Our Community

I’m becoming more connected with like-minded groups of people these days, mostly via social media, and these groups are key to the 1,000+ “likes” I mentioned above. Leaning on this broader community has made all the difference in my humane education writing making an impact.

After the sea lion piece went live, I posted the link on the Facebook pages of every like-minded group I knew. These are our fellow activists who are working to save the animals, the planet, and all of us, in any small way. And, incorporating my last tip, I specifically asked them to please read, like, and share the piece.

Ask the wider humane education community to help spread your writing. We’re all on this mission together!


Disclaimer: The opinions expressed by guest posters are those of the individual authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Institute for Humane Education or its staff.

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Does Our Short Attention Span Prevent Us From Deep Thinking?

For my blog post today, I’m sharing a recent essay I wrote for Care2.com, an online community for people passionate about creating a better world. Here’s an excerpt from "Does Our Short Attention Span Prevent Us From Deep Thinking?":

"In his recent essay in Harvard Business Review, Umair Haque critiques “TED thinking,” which he writes, serves “as a shorthand for the way we’ve come to think about ideas and how we share them, whether it’s through an 18-minute talk, an 800-word blog post, or the latest business ‘best-seller’…. ‘TED thinking’ is just a symptom: and the underlying syndrome is our broken relationship with Great Ideas.” 

While Haque brings up some important and good points in his essay, the construct he presents creates a false dichotomy between “TED thinking” and deep thinking; between solutions-oriented thinking and theorizing; between application and analysis; between idea generation and Great Ideas. These either/ors are both unnecessary and unhelpful."

Read the complete essay.


~ Zoe


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 TEDxDirigo talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach"
My TEDxConejo talk: "Solutionaries"
My TEDxYouth@CEHS "How to Be a Solutionary"

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Help Create a Better World By Learning Something New Today ... And Every Day

Several years ago I was talking to a neighbor about the conditions that factory farmed animals endure, and I mentioned that one of the practices the industry uses for many battery hens (those kept in cages to lay eggs) is forced molting. She asked me what exactly forced molting was.

Uhhh. I didn’t know.

I’d read that it was a bad thing done to battery hens, and that’s all I needed to know; it must therefore be a bad practice. But, if I was going to talk intelligently and knowledgeably as a humane educator about animal protection issues, I needed to learn more about them.

A great opportunity for learning something new.

Many years before that, I’d been a staunch believer that homosexuality was a "sin" -- because that’s what I’d been taught. I had no reason to question it, because everyone else around me believed it (or at least chose not to say otherwise). I could safely assume it was true. And then, in college, I befriended my new fellow dance majors, many of whom were gay. And I realized that all my “facts” and beliefs were just assumptions that I’d established out of the culture, habits, and traditions under which I was raised.

A great opportunity for learning something new.

My new shampoo has an unpronounceable chemical in it. I see a label that says “certified humane.” I find the perfect outfit at a certain store, but I’m not sure where or how the outfit was made or what the business practices of the store are. All great opportunities to learn something new.

If we truly want to make choices that reflect values such as compassion and justice, and that do the most good and the least harm for all, it’s important that we educate ourselves about the impact of our choices, question our assumptions, and learn ways to create positive change.

Take time to learn something new -- today and every day -- to increase your knowledge as a citizen and humane educator. It will help the world become just that little bit better, and help you be a more effective and credible changemaker.

~ Marsha

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When Critical Thinking Proponents Fail to Think Critically

Image courtesy vipez/Flickr.

For the past several years I’ve been reading lots of books about why we often believe so many unsubstantiated things.

Part of this reading is due to my fascination with human belief systems – something I’ve pursued for decades and which compelled me to study world religions at Harvard Divinity School. Part of it is due to my commitment to find a good book on critical thinking to include in our graduate programs at the Institute for Humane Education. And part of it is because I want to understand how to better teach, inspire, and ignite critical thinking myself, because not only are critical and creative thinking hallmarks of humane education, but also because I don’t think we’ll be able to solve our gravest challenges if young people don’t learn to think critically and creatively.

I’ve written about critical thinking many times (such as here, here, and here), but I’ve yet to find the perfect book to include in our graduate programs. Over the weekend I began a book titled Hoaxes, Myths and Manias: Why we need Critical Thinking. I had high hopes. This book seemed to have all the right ingredients. But very quickly I read this paragraph:

"Possession of emotions is one of the things that defines us as people. While other animals may be said to have moods, instincts, or even thoughts, the human animal is the only one with true emotions as we know them. We experience avarice and anger, joy and jealousy, hatred and love...."

For such thoughtful authors -- who are attempting to raise the bar on critical thinking and ensure that readers learn to distinguish fact from opinion and make reasoned arguments -- to make such an unsubstantiated, and really quite ridiculous assertion (particularly when it doesn't even advance their thesis), undermined for me their ability to do the job their book demanded and diminished their credibility.

Ironically, in this case, their statement actually stands in opposition to most of the false claims about human and nonhuman animal distinctions, which argue that animals may have emotions (one need not look far to witness jealousy, joy, and love among other species, not to mention fear) but cannot think.

I am trying to not judge the entire book by such an early statement, but it casts doubt on the authors' own ability to think critically, not a good sign in a book on critical thinking.

But their flip comment about human v. animal emotions also raised a bigger issue for me. Too many sociologists, psychologists, cognitive scientists and others feel compelled to insert false and regularly debunked (and practically always different) claims about human uniqueness, even when entirely misplaced to advance their larger argument.

Until and unless these specious comments cease and these science-loving authors cite actual scientific studies of nonhuman animals, they can’t expect others not to embrace their own equally unsubstantiated beliefs.

~ Zoe


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 TEDxDirigo talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach"
My TEDxYouth@BFS "Educating for Freedom"
My TEDxYouth@CEHS "How to Be a Solutionary"

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