No Child Left Unkind: Building Humane Education Competencies

Posted on September 29, 2008 by zoeweil

Teachers are expected to educate their students so that they are competent in certain subjects, and No Child Left Behind and state laws require that students pass tests demonstrating their knowledge and competencies. While it’s important to know that we are succeeding in our goals as teachers, and that our students are actually learning and developing the skills we endeavor to impart, the danger with constantly measuring our students is that we may begin to teach simply to enable them to pass multiple choice tests and neglect what’s harder to measure, but ultimately more important to learn: to think creatively and critically, to connect relevant issues of our time to our personal responsibilities, actions and choices, and to make healthy, positive choices for ourselves and others.

If we believe that the primary goal of education ought to be the ability to participate effectively and enthusiastically in the unfolding of a peaceful, sustainable and humane world, then there are certainly competencies we will want our students to have:

  • the ability to think critically and creatively about the challenges we face, as well as the messages that bombard us from all sources, so that we gain freedom
  • the awareness and understanding of our individual responsibility to do more good and less harm, so that we gain commitment
  • the tools to make positive choices and be problem-solvers, so that we gain empowerment

There is no standardized test to measure these competencies, and such a test would potentially undermine the very creativity, process-orientation, and flexibility that education should seek to cultivate. Yet we must ensure we’re succeeding in our goals as educators. How can we do this?

We can observe our success in the projects our students take on and the outcomes of their efforts, witnessing their commitments in action. We can “test” their skill at recognizing fact from opinion and thinking critically with entertaining activities that allow them to analyze and deconstruct all sorts of messages, from advertising to media to government to textbooks. We can engage them in group projects and witness their sense of empowerment grow as they succeed in solving or contributing to the solutions to local and global problems. If we’re attentive and creative, we can know that our efforts to raise a generation of creative citizens and “solutionaries” are working.

~ Zoe

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Dancing Cockatoos, Drawing Elephants, Raven Altars and Crow Vending Machines

Posted on September 26, 2008 by zoeweil

We’re always underestimating other animals. I’ve been reading Animal Dialogues by Craig Childs, and his description of raven altars is almost eerie, until I ask myself why I’m surprised, or awed, or amazed that other species do what we do — sometimes with training (which concerns me), and sometimes on their own (but in human environs), and sometimes in the wild (where intrepid observers go to observe and report).

Here are three videos to view, each of which is a reminder anew that we humans would do well to be more humble about our own specialness and more inclusive in our compassion.

Enjoy,

~ Zoe

Image courtesy of jonathanBy.

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Speak Out So That Sarah Palin Will Speak Up

Posted on September 25, 2008 by zoeweil

So far, the McCain campaign is not permitting Sarah Palin to talk to the media on the record or to answer questions at open events, beyond a couple of selected venues (one of which was with a right wing conservative commentator, not a respected news anchor).  I presume they believe this is the MOGO (Most Good) choice for increasing their electability, but it is clearly not the MOGO choice for the public, the country, or the world.  How can voters make an informed decision about this critically important election if we are unable to hear unscripted responses to a range of media questions and our own concerns?  We can’t.  Given Senator McCain’s recurrent melanoma and his age, it’s awfully important that we be able to ask and receive answers from his Vice Presidential running mate, whose chances of being president if Senator McCain wins are not insignificant.

We must demand that Governor Palin answer our questions.  It’s MOGO to do so.  How can we make such demands?  By speaking out forcefully (letters to the editor, blog posts, with neighbors, in our communities) and emailing John McCain.

Making MOGO choices is impossible without accurate information.

~ Zoe

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Instead of a Bailout, a New Deal for Education, Sustainability and the Economy

Posted on September 24, 2008 by zoeweil

I’m not an economist, but I, like many Americans, have been trying to understand and develop a cogent opinion about the economic crisis we are facing.  A $700 billion dollar taxpayer bailout of Wall Street investment firms doesn’t sit well, although I’m convinced that speedy action is necessary to avert economic collapse.  During the great depression, President Roosevelt offered the United States a new deal; he did not bail out Wall Street.

Our country’s infrastructure is in shambles.  We face a desperate need to develop clean, viable energy sources.  We need more schools and more humane educators so that classes are reasonably-sized, and students receive the education that will help them become citizen problem-solvers.  We need more farmers producing food in a sustainable and organic manner.  And people need jobs in order to pay their mortgages.

Since a primary reason for the current economic collapse is the housing crisis and the inability of so many homeowners to pay their mortgages, why not consider this approach instead of a bailout:

1) Let’s make sure that no one else loses their home to foreclosure, by making every effort possible to rewrite these mortgages so that they are manageable and affordable over time.

2) Let’s invest the $700 billion dollars Congress is now considering in a new New Deal that puts people to work on solar, geothermal, hydrogen, wave, wind, and hydro power technologies (as well as other emerging clean fuels), on infrastructure repair, on sustainable agriculture, and in education.

What will we solve with such a plan?  Our economy will heal as these new jobs enable people to afford their homes, pay their taxes, and purchase healthy, sustainable foods from more conscientious farmers.  Wall Street will do well as the economy recovers, people buy the products they need, and pay the mortgages that currently make up so many investment banks’ funds.  A new generation of graduates will have tools to solve continued challenges.  And when our economy recovers, we’ll have what we need to ensure that social security is stable and health care is possible for all.

Wouldn’t this be a better way to invest $700 billion dollars?

~ Zoe

Filed under: economy, education, humane education | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments »

Eating on $1 a Day

Posted on September 22, 2008 by zoeweil

One of our M.Ed. graduates at the Institute for Humane Education, Christopher Greenslate, and his partner, Kerri, have embarked on a new project. For a month, they are eating on less than $1 per day each. You can read about their journey on their blog.

As I read their first week of blog entries, I found myself thinking about how important it is to break out of the unexamined routine of our lives. As Socrates said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” Yet, how many of us actually examine our lives and challenge our assumptions, our ideas, our beliefs, and our behaviors?

When Christopher and Kerri end their experiment they will have learned so much: about poverty, desire, and themselves, and about the billion people in the world who go to bed hungry every night. They will have become cleverer and more resilient, more introspective, more aware. They will have cultivated their ability to persevere, their courage, and their creativity. They will have paid more attention to what surrounds them – not only to the availability of free food at fast food restaurants and in dumpsters, but also to plants and trees from which they can forage. They will have learned about the systems of food distribution and production.

And they will have deepened their capacity to make MOGO (Most Good) choices. What often makes living according to the MOGO principle difficult is that our desires, fears, and habits compete so vigorously with our commitment to lead an examined, intentional, positive, generous life. Most of us resist change; we become attached to our habits and mistake our desires for needs.

I love what Christopher and Kerri are doing for so many reasons, but what is most compelling to me is that by embarking on this challenging project, they open themselves ever more deeply to the possibilities for positive change because they have cultivated their ability to understand, to act, and to choose.

~ Zoe

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10 Technologies for MOGO (Most Good) Living

Posted on September 18, 2008 by zoeweil

In its latest issue, Discover Magazine describes 10 relatively simple technologies to help change the world. I love these, not only because they are practical, doable, and creative, but also because they demonstrate that there are so many ideas being generated all the time to solve our challenges.

At the same time as we are hearing “Drill, Drill, Drill” and “More Nuclear Power Plants,” inventors, engineers, scientists, and changemakers are developing simple, sustainable, and practical new technologies that we can put into practice now. As climate change looms as an unprecedented threat in human history, and as an economic crisis threatens to overtake the globe, we need solutions that solve both.

The MOGO (Most Good) principle must be applied to everything – all people, all species, and the environment, and solutions need to take all into consideration. That’s why Discover Magazine’s list is inspiring, and why we must be wary of solutions that invest hundreds of billions of dollars into more drilling and decades-long projects for nuclear power instead of sustainable, green technologies for a better future for all.

~ Zoe

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Meat and Global Warming: Mainstream Media Reports the Important News…Eventually

Posted on September 15, 2008 by zoeweil

In last week’s Time Magazine, there’s a great article on the connection between meat consumption and global warming. When articles such as these come out, I’m always so happy that the mainstream press is reporting on such critically important information. I’m grateful that such news –- unpalatable though it may be to many –- is getting the press it so desperately needs.

But then I wonder why it takes so long. When so many people (such as scientists and changemakers) have been working for so many years to reveal important information like that in this story to the public, and when the mainstream media takes such a long time (in this case over a decade) to catch up, I read such articles with a sigh. “Finally,” I think, and get back to work.

We need our mainstream media to report information –- no matter how unwelcome -– when it comes out, not when they think the public is ready to hear it and they won’t get castigated for it. And we must do our part to urge them to do so and acknowledge the importance of these reports.

~ Zoe

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Lipstick on a Pig

Posted on September 11, 2008 by zoeweil

At the risk of adding yet another comment on the endless, ridiculous commentary on Barack Obama’s remark about John McCain’s economic policies (that his policies, no matter how he tried to recast them, amounted to putting lipstick on a pig; the policies were still a pig), I feel compelled to say this:

In a Washington Post editorial we read: “Mr. Obama’s supposedly offending remark was not only not offensive — it also was not directed at Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.” Indeed, Obama’s comment was not offensive to Governor Palin, but it was – hear me out – offensive to pigs, even though pigs are not capable of taking offense to human language.

The expression “putting lipstick on a pig,” like so many expressions (“She’s a cow,” “What a dog,” “He’s chicken,” “She’s a weasel,” among countless other pig expressions), subtly perpetuates our perception and treatment of animals. These expressions subconsciously influence how we view other species: as lazy, stupid, worthless, cowardly, untrustworthy, fat, ugly, etc. They lead us to believe that these animals are not worthy of consideration, protection, or kindness. They are ours to use and exploit because they are, after all, just animals.

This is not a criticism of Obama – we all use these expressions; they are embedded in our language and culture. But it’s worth asking, in all the hoopla that has surrounded Obama’s remark, whether, although it was utterly innocuous in relation to Sarah Palin, it was really harmless after all. Given that hundreds of millions of pigs are tortured, and I use that word intentionally, in our modern agricultural systems, perhaps we might want to find new ways of saying what we mean without perpetuating the oppression of other sentient species.

~ Zoe

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Teach What You Know

Posted on September 8, 2008 by zoeweil

Those of us working to change the world for the better are accustomed to viewing websites, reading blogs and articles from our favorite media and watching films and YouTube videos that fuel our motivation and effort toward action. We learn something new about a problem in the world, and we want to teach others about it.

We hire teachers who specialize in specific subjects to teach our secondary school students. We don’t expect language arts teachers to teach physics, and we don’t expect math teachers to teach social studies.

With a subject as broad as humane education, which covers human rights, environmental preservation, and animal protection, as well as issues of culture such as media, economic globalization, social psychology, and so much more, the task of the humane educator is considerable. How can we possible be expert enough in these many interrelated subjects to teach about them accurately? We certainly cannot gain such expertise just from visits to our preferred blogs or by relying on a few specific media sources.

This is why our M.Ed. and certificate programs in humane education are two years long. We must commit to learning thoroughly, reading widely, viewing broadly, and thinking deeply for a lifetime in order to be a true humane educator.

With that said, humane educators ask questions rather than provide answers. They invite and inspire their students to be lifelong learners and to delve into the critical subjects of our time with passion and commitment so that together we may come up with solutions that work for all.

~ Zoe

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Racism of the Blind

Posted on September 4, 2008 by zoeweil

I’ve often wondered what racism looks like if you’re blind.  In societies in which the color of our skin is still a powerful force in the way we are perceived and treated — our privileges and opportunities as well as our obstacles and challenges — what would happen if we could not perceive color?  Would we still find ways to create “us and thems ”?  Would some other factor emerge that we would use to separate ourselves?  Sadly, I think the answer is yes, as we can witness in cultures in which skin, hair, and eye color are consistently the same, while religion, ethnicity or class takes the place of color in our hierarchy of acceptance or rejection, inclusion or trepidation.

We find a dozen ways to create thems, carrying our agendas, our fear, and our sense of rightness and righteousness into the wider world.  Just as “Joanne” is “other” to the group of residency students, those outside our circles — however we come to define them — become other, the enemy.  This summer at our residency training, one of our students shared this quote: “An enemy is someone whose story has not yet been heard.”

Can we listen, like those who are blind, instead of perceiving what we set out to see with our eyes?  The final line of my favorite e.e.cummings poem is this: “Now the ears of my ears awake; now the eyes of my eyes are open.” The eyes of our eyes perceive a greater truth than the narrow vision we’re taught to accept as real or important, and the ears of our ears allow us to hear our perceived enemy, so that she may become our friend.

~ Zoe

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