During our student residency training last month, we grappled with our goals as humane educators. Do we teach in order to change the world? Do we teach because we love our students and want the best for them? Do we teach with some combination of these two goals? How do we work with the tension that can arise when our goals may conflict?

I went into the field of education because I wanted to help create a more humane, sustainable, and peaceful world. In order to solve our problems, I believed, students needed information and inspiration to be changemakers. While I have always loved working with kids, my primary goal as an educator was to inform and motivate my students to participate in the development of a kinder world. Was it possible that I was “using” kids for this “higher” purpose, so focused on my vision that I didn’t care to listen to theirs?

Melissa Feldman, a humane educator for 25 years, and a member of our faculty at the Institute for Humane Education, shared with our group her goals when she teaches young people: to listen to them, to enrich their lives, to be a force for good for each student, to allow them to be themselves and be heard.

Humane educators must not see our goals in either/or terms. Instead we can realize that our vision can include education for a better world and education for the benefit and joy of each individual student. As one of our taglines reads at the Institute for Humane Education: The World + You.

~ Zoe

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