MOGO Hero: Lynn Henning

Posted on April 30, 2010 by zoeweil

I’m going to start a new theme in my blog posts – MOGO Hero. Periodically, I’ll highlight a modern-day, ordinary hero whose efforts do the most good (MOGO). Today, I’m beginning with Lynn Henning, a Michigan woman who just won the 2010 Goldman Environmental Prize for North America for her work to fight CAFOs in her region.

Take a look at this short video:

Zoe Weil
Author of Most Good, Least Harm: A Simple Principle for a Better World and Meaningful Life and Above All, Be Kind

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Filed under: changemakers, citizen activism, courage, Environmental Preservation, food and diet, heroes, systemic change | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Comments Off

Merit Pay for Great Teachers – Good or Bad Idea?

Posted on April 28, 2010 by zoeweil

I subscribe to Dan Pink’s newsletter. Dan is the author of the excellent book, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, and in his newsletter he sometimes responds to one of the myriad questions he receives about how to apply Drive to different realms of life. In his most recent newsletter he responds to the following question, one that is very pertinent to those of us who are trying to transform schooling. I found his response both thought-provoking and important, and I wanted to share it with readers of my blog.

Q: Dan, there’s been a lot of talk lately about “merit pay” for schoolteachers – that is, tying teacher salaries to student performance, especially on standardized tests. What do you think of this approach?

A: A few years ago, I thought this was a great idea. Incentivize teachers and then pay the outstanding ones more? What could be wrong with that? It’s logical, straightforward, and fair. However, after looking at 50 years of research on human motivation for DRIVE, I’ve changed my mind. I think that this approach, despite is surface appeal, has more flaws than strengths – and that there’s a simpler, more effective alternative.

Here’s my reasoning:

For starters, most proposals for “merit pay” (sorry, I can’t use the term without quotation marks) tie teacher compensation to student scores on standardized tests. That’s a disaster. It focuses teachers almost single-mindedly on training their students to pencil in correct answers on multiple choice tests – and turns classrooms into test prep academies. (What’s more, it can encourage cheating, as Georgia’s experience shows.) So let’s knock out this approach to merit pay.

A second option is for school principals to decide who gets performance bonuses. Again, there’s a certain theoretical appeal to this method. But I’ve yet to meet a teacher who considers it fair, let alone motivating. Teachers worry that principals don’t have sufficient information to make such decisions and that “merit pay” would be based too heavily on who’s best at playing politics and currying favor. So let’s kibosh this method, too.

A third approach is to use a variety metrics to determine who gets a bonus. You could measure teacher performance using: standardized scores for that teacher’s students; evaluations of the teacher’s peers, students, parents, and principal; a teacher’s contribution to overall school performance; time devoted to professional development; how much the teachers’ students improved over the previous year; and so on. This isn’t necessarily a bad idea. But it has a huge downside: It would force resource-strapped schools to spend enormous amounts of time, talent, and brainpower measuring teachers rather than educating students. Schools have enough to do already. And the costs of establishing and maintaining elaborate measurement systems would likely outweigh the benefits.

In short, I can’t see a way to construct a merit pay scheme that is both simple and fair. What’s more, it strikes me as slightly delusional to think that people who’ve intentionally chosen to pursue a career for public-spirited, rather than economic, reasons will suddenly work harder because they’re offered a few hundred extra dollars. Truth be told, most teachers work pretty damn hard already.

Fortunately, I think there’s an easier and more elegant solution – one that’s also supported by the science of human motivation.

First, we should raise the base pay of teachers. Too many talented people opt out of this career because they’re concerned about supporting their families. For prospective teachers, raising base salaries would remove an obstacle to entering the profession. For existing teachers, it’s a way to recognize the importance of their jobs without resorting to behavior-distorting carrots and sticks. The science reveals a paradox about money and motivation: In most cases, the best use of money as a motivator is to pay people enough to take the issue of money off the table. Raising base salaries would help take the issue of money off the table. Instead of fretting about paying their bills on an insufficient salary or scheming to get a small bonus, teachers could focus on the work they love.

At the same time, we have to make it easier to get rid of bad teachers. Teaching, like any profession, has its share of duds. Showing these folks the door, which now is quite difficult, is the right thing to do. It’s better for students, of course. But it’s also better for the teachers who remain. Just as it’s very motivating to have great colleagues, it’s incredibly de-motivating to have lazy or incompetent ones.

So . . . if I could wave a magic wand, I’d dispense with elaborate and complicated “merit pay” schemes  for teachers. Instead, I’d raise teachers’ base pay and make it easier to get rid of bad teachers. That solution is simpler, fairer, and much more consistent with what truly motivates high performance.

For more information about Dan Pink and his work, visit: www.danpink.com.

What are your thoughts on merit pay for good teachers? Please share them!

Zoe Weil
Author of The Power and Promise of Humane Education and Most Good, Least Harm

Image courtesy of JMRosenfeld via Creative Commons.

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Moving Forward Toward a Sustainable World

Posted on April 26, 2010 by zoeweil

Among some environmentalists, there is a strong anti-civilization movement and the belief that the only hope for a sustainable world entails a return to a veritable Stone Age, a time when humans had neither the capacity, the desire, nor the wherewithal to create havoc within ecosystems, cause the extinction of myriad species, and utterly despoil our environment.

Whenever I have seen or heard this position put forth as a viable solution to the situation in which we find ourselves in the 21st century, I’ve thought it both ludicrous and misanthropic: ludicrous because it simply will not happen that billions of people will willingly return to a pre-technological era, and misanthropic because such a return would necessitate the death of much of humanity.

But until I read the current issue of The Sun magazine and the interview with “environmental optimist” and founder of Worldchanging.com, Alex Steffen, I’d never seen a critique of such a position so well articulated. Steffen argues that the return to a Stone Age way of life would cause catastrophic human suffering, saying:

“We know that way of life can’t support a population in the billions, so trying to go back to it would require the death of most of the world’s people. Beyond that, I think it’s obvious that nature is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Humanity, Inc. We have the capacity to take it down with us if we choose, and people are put into desperate situations will do just that. There’s this sort of college-town anarchist idea that if we let it all fall apart, out of the ruins will come something clean and noncommercial and egalitarian and more in touch with nature, but that’s just crazy. Hungry people don’t think about the future. As my colleague Allan AtKisson says, a world of starving people will be a world without panda bears, dolphins, or rain forests. By the time we got back to the Stone Age, we wouldn’t have the same world we had during the Stone Age. We can’t go back; there’s no ‘back’ to go back to.”

Steffen insists that it’s equally deluded to believe that technology will “magically find a way to let us continue living wasteful, suburban lives based on throwaway consumption.” To me, this means we need to find a way to move forward, and that will happen when we don’t romanticize the past as a perfect template for a viable future and we don’t cling to the present as an ideal to spread across the globe, but rather begin to envision a world in which we are all able to live joyful, healthy, meaningful lives which meet our physical and emotional needs peaceably and sustainably. Yes, this is indeed hard to imagine. For some, it may seem unimaginable. But what else should we do than make the effort to imagine such a world and put legs on our vision?

In the same interview, Steffen is asked, “How do you look at all these problems and stay optimistic?” He responds:

“Optimism is a political act. Those who benefit from the status quo are perfectly happy for us to think nothing is going to get any better. In fact, these days, cynicism is obedience. What’s really radical is being willing to look right at the problems we face and still insist that we can solve them.”

I don’t pretend to know how to solve all our problems or how to change the many systems (economic, political, energy, agricultural, legal, commercial, etc.) that perpetuate them. I do know, however, that there is one system whose transformation will lead to changes in all the other systems. That system is education. If we as a society redefine the purpose of schooling and provide all students with the knowledge, tools, and inspiration to themselves envision a sustainable and peaceful world, then these young people will bring that knowledge, those tools, and their enthusiasm into all the professions they enter, transforming each in turn.

While we don’t need to know all the answers, we need to believe that those answers are obtainable, both by us today, and by our children tomorrow. We must not abdicate our responsibility to harness our own creativity and critical thinking skills and to insist that our children’s curiosity, creativity and critical thinking capacities be cultivated and encouraged with the goal of a peaceful, sustainable world as their grail. This is the way forward.

Zoe Weil
Author of Above All, Be Kind: Raising a Humane Child in Challenging Times and Most Good, Least Harm: A Simple Principle for a Better World and Meaningful Life

Image courtesy of sardinelly via Creative Commons.

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Filed under: economy, Environmental Preservation, humane education, responsibility, systemic change | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Dyeing One’s Hair…Gray?

Posted on April 23, 2010 by zoeweil

When I was younger I was certain I would never dye my hair when I began to gray. After all, I already eschewed shaving and managed to stand tall (well, as tall as I could at 5’1”) even in a bathing suit surrounded by women who shaved every bit of hair they were told to through our culture. But it wasn ’t easy. And eventually, I reluctantly decided to shave when I worried that my appearance might interfere with my message as a humane educator. If students found my hairy legs disgusting, they might reject my message out of hand, or so I concluded. Ironically, years later, one of my students told me that she was really inspired by the fact that I didn ’t shave my legs and that it empowered her to make her own choices in life, based on her own values, rather than to succumb to peer and societal pressures. (Take a look at this recent New York Times article about celebrities who aren’t shaving and the flack they’re receiving.)

Now back to gray hair. As my hair began to gray, I girded myself with all my will to resist the pressure to dye it. For the most part I’ve resisted successfully, although I occasionally put henna in it, which rinses out after about a month. I get all sorts of compliments on my graying hair, but I always think they’re backhanded compliments, and that what the person who’s praising my hair is really thinking is something like, “Wow, you are courageous to not dye your hair! And it’s not so bad-looking either! Sure, you’d look a lot younger if you dyed it, but good for you!” I may be wrong about this, or just paranoid, but it’s hard to believe that people actually mean it when they say they like my gray hair. I always joke and say that I think my gray looks like highlights.

Well, guess what? Young celebrities are now highlighting their hair … gray. Here’s an article from the New York Times for your viewing pleasure, with photos of young women with dyed gray hair.

Most dyes aren’t good for our bodies. We absorb them into our skin through our scalp. Many of them are tested on animals, force-fed to rabbits, mice, guinea pigs, and so on in quantities that kill and put into the eyes of bunnies who receive no pain relief or anesthesia. They create waste, some of which is toxic, in every portion of their brief lifecycle. Dyeing our hair is a costly and time-consuming habit. Yet I understand why so many women believe that it’s MOGO (most good) to dye their hair. I sympathize. As women age, we become more and more invisible within a culture that so valorizes youth, so dyeing one’s hair feels like an easy way to gain visibility and maintain attention, not to mention self-esteem.

But perhaps now we middle aged and elderly women can let our gray hair shine. After all, young women are paying lots of money to look like us.

Zoe Weil
Author of Most Good, Least Harm, Above All, Be Kind and Claude and Medea

Image courtesy of kevindooley via Creative Commons.

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Eco-tours, Labels, and the Power of Sleuthing

Posted on April 21, 2010 by zoeweil

Several years ago, following a conference in Florida where I was the keynote speaker talking about humane education, I was invited to participate in an eco-tour through the Everglades. Since the conference organizers planned the eco-tour and were humane educators themselves, I felt confident that our tour would be, as described, ecologically friendly.

Sadly, it was not. We zoomed through the Everglades in an air boat, and while there is no risk of harming manatees or other wildlife from the blades of the motor in such a boat, that is where its ecological friendliness ends. Air boats still use lots of energy, and they are deafeningly noisy, disturbing the peace of the Everglades in the extreme.

At our destination in the middle of the Everglades, our guide hand-fed a wild alligator, and while it was cool to see an alligator so close, one wonders at the ecological friendliness of feeding wild animals, especially potentially dangerous ones. Back in the van, our guide then asked us what we wanted to eat at the lunch stop – a non-organic, meat and potatoes establishment at which we were offered alligator nuggets.

This was a reminder to me that I need to do research before I blindly trust a label, whether it’s eco-tourism or organic (which doesn’t mean local or sustainably grown or even produced without cruelty to animals), free-range (which doesn’t mean non-intensive or non-crowded or outdoors), made-in-America (which doesn’t mean not made in a U.S. territory which doesn’t adhere to U.S. labor standards), or not tested on animals (which doesn’t mean the ingredients weren’t tested on animals). Much of the time the label belies a hidden, unsustainable and/or inhumane reality.

While it would be so nice to be able to trust labels, if we want to make MOGO (most good) choices, we need to be vigilant about doing our own research. This may seem burdensome, but it’s liberating to embrace the power of inquiry, and it’s actually fun to become a sleuth. And the Internet makes it easy to do this. And then you don’t wind up in situations like I did in the Everglades, wondering how your values ever got so terribly compromised.

Good sleuthing to you,

Zoe Weil
Author of Claude and Medea (a children’s mystery book about youth sleuthers!)

Image courtesy of chrisbb@prodigy.net via Creative Commons.

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Filed under: accurate information, animal protection, critical thinking, Environmental Preservation, MOGO (Most Good), values | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

The Heroic Trend Bodes Well for Our Future

Posted on April 19, 2010 by zoeweil

Take a look at this video:


What’s happening here?

In a cynical and angry era, with the specter of terrorism, the rise of neo-Nazis and other hate-based groups, greed-induced corruption in business, and extremist media personalities spewing more and more venom, there’s a youth heroism movement that’s gaining momentum, and I believe it will be sweeping the country in the coming years. This is evidenced by the unprecedented success of a children’s series about heroic youth (Harry Potter), the incredible growth of such organizations as Craig Kielburger’s Free The Children, and the emergence of programs like Matt Langdon’s Hero Construction Company,  and Phil Zimbardo’s Heroic Imagination Project (on whose board of advisors I sit), which is launching a curriculum to promote heroism in schools.

By and large, kids are not taking the fear-mongering, rage-producing bait being offered to them in the media, and even violent crime in the biggest U.S. cities has been dropping significantly over the last decade. Kids routinely participate in community service and consider it a part of what’s expected from them. They reject homophobia and other prejudices. They are less likely to be “angry activists” and more likely to be successful “changemakers.”

Even as Congress is increasingly polarized and as talk radio and TV create the perception of greater hostility and intractable conflict, youth persist in working together, making a difference, solving problems, and creating a groundswell of grassroots goodness that is slowly but surely creating positive change in communities across the world.

Please share this good news and do what you can to provide youth with the knowledge, tools, and motivation to be young heroes, conscientious choicemakers, and engaged changemakers for a better world. Thankfully, these kids and this heroic movement represent our future.

Zoe Weil
Author of Most Good, Least Harm, Claude and Medea, and Above All, Be Kind

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Moral Behavior Doesn’t Depend on Religion: Sam Harris’s “Science Can Answer Moral Questions”

Posted on April 16, 2010 by zoeweil

I just watched a new TED talk given by author Sam Harris, titled, “Science Can Answer Moral Questions.” I recommend watching it and considering his (to my mind reasonable, to others quite provocative) perspective.

When I was a freshman in college, a friend of a friend had gone off to travel the world. He wound up at the Western Wall in Jerusalem where he was befriended by an Orthodox Jew who invited him to a Yeshiva to study Judaism. Having grown up as a secular Jew, he was compelled to learn about the religion of his ancestors. And he became an Orthodox Jew himself. He returned to our college for a visit, and I had the opportunity to meet him. Because I was Jewish (and secular) he was eager to proselytize, so he spent many hours with me talking about Judaism in particular and religion in general.

One of his arguments for religion was this: if there is no God, there is no reason why he shouldn’t rape or murder. I found this reasoning utterly preposterous. Moral behavior need have nothing at all to do with religion, as evidenced by all the atheists and agnostics in the world (me among them) who strive with great effort and commitment to lead lives that do the most good and the least harm. And science can lead us toward moral behavior even as religion sometimes leads us away from it.

What I appreciated about Sam Harris’ TED talk was how eloquently and unapologetically he reinforces this point. I welcome your thoughts after viewing Harris’ presentation.


Zoe Weil
Author of Most Good, Least Harm, Above All, Be Kind, and The Power and Promise of Humane Education

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Practical Wisdom aka Common Sense

Posted on April 14, 2010 by zoeweil

Take a look at this TED talk by Barry Schwartz on our loss of wisdom:

It’s hard to know where to begin blogging about a talk that covers so much ground, and which offers great examples, stories, and humor about why we so desperately need to engage our practical wisdom (and cultivate it among our children) if we want to be able to actually embody all the other good qualities that are necessary for a healthier world.

Barry Schwartz tells one story that I hope will spark your interest in watching the whole talk. A father has taken his son to an event, and his son wants some lemonade. The father goes to get it, and the only lemonade available is “hard lemonade.” The father has no idea that this is alcoholic lemonade (it’s easy not to know if you don’t watch TV and are of an “older” generation), and brings it to his child. A security person sees the child, calls the police, and an ambulance whisks the boy to the emergency room of a hospital where he is found to have no measurable alcohol in his blood. Nonetheless, the department of health and human services puts the boy in foster care for three days, and when he returns home a judge requires that the father move into a motel. Schwartz bemoans the lack of practical wisdom evident in this example. Some would simply call it a lack of common sense.

The talk is especially important for teachers/humane educators. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Zoe Weil
Author of Most Good, Least Harm and Above All, Be Kind

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Driving a Nissan Cube – Assumptions & Judgments Revisited

Posted on April 12, 2010 by zoeweil

When I travel and need to rent a vehicle, I always opt for the economy car. I do this for two reasons. The economy car is normally small and relatively fuel efficient, and I want to keep costs low and have never seen a reason for anything but the least expensive rental.

So it was when I was in Detroit at the end of March. I’d been waiting for awhile at the rental office to get my car, and when I finally did, I was a bit dismayed that the car they’d given me was a Nissan Cube (see photo). The car looked like it belonged in a Dr. Seuss book, not on the road in the 21st century. It didn’t look very fuel efficient either (it wasn’t), but having been waiting for a long time and not wanting to be a high maintenance renter, I went with it.

It began to occur to me, as I drove the Cube between Ann Arbor and Detroit, that people would think I had chosen this car and that it was a reflection of me. I began to feel a bit embarrassed and wanted to wear dark glasses and a big hat behind the wheel. Sure enough, when I was stopped at a light in Royal Oak, a family walked by with two middle school-aged boys, and the father and boys stared at my car, and then at ME through the window. Then they began laughing. Laughing! I was just about to roll down the window and explain that the ridiculous thing I was driving was a rental car when the light changed.

Funny the assumptions we make. We assume so much about people based on how they look, what they’re wearing, carrying, driving, and so on. And along with our assumptions come judgments, even though we know next to nothing about those we so quickly judge based on outward appearances.

Years ago, my husband needed to borrow his boss’s Hummer, and he drove it home and into our parking area at the Institute for Humane Education where I work and we live. I was aghast. I told him he had to get that Hummer out of our driveway as soon as possible. After all, what would people think?!

These examples remind me that I need to rein in my assumptions and judgments. While outward choices and appearances may tell us something about people, our assumptions may often be wrong and our judgments misplaced and potentially destructive. I believe that it’s best, as far as we are able, to bring a “beginner’s eye” to all situations and assume nothing. That way, we allow the unfolding of real relationships based on real interactions to eclipse the myriad fantasies that follow our snap judgments and prevent us from connecting, understanding, and communicating.

Zoe Weil
Author of Most Good, Least Harm and Above All, Be Kind

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Discovering New Things in Old Places

Posted on April 9, 2010 by zoeweil

My husband and I decided to hike up a fairly familiar mountain with our dogs, but after we started on the trail, decided to do a detour on a side trail out to a pond we’d never explored. I felt ambivalent about our decision. Because of time constraints, it was possible we wouldn’t make it up the mountain by going on this detour, and I didn’t expect to see much that was new. Where we live in Maine, especially in the winter months, the terrain is relatively predictable. Lots of pines, firs, and spruce trees, granite, and recognizable plants wherever you look. This far north, there’s not the kind of variety one finds in the mid-Atlantic states where we used to live.

We got to the pond, and sure enough, not much to report, but my husband wanted to explore further on an unmapped trail. So we followed this trail, which eventually forked in the direction we wanted, albeit onto what was barely recognizable as a viable path, let alone a trail. I was itching to turn back, in large part because I really wanted to ascend the mountain, and at the rate we were going we wouldn’t have time, but my husband reminded me that we were exploring. And I love exploring! But the truth is that I didn’t believe there was much to explore. While we’d never walked there before, it was the same old terrain.

But then we came upon a glacial erratic, a huge, cabin-sized boulder deposited in the middle of the woods by a glacier thousands of years ago; that wasn’t so unusual, but we found a homemade-in-the-woods ladder up to the top. Then we came upon a beautiful, tropical-looking plant, one neither of us had ever seen in eastern Maine, and then we wandered into an old growth Hemlock forest. We ended up bushwhacking, using a pond as a reference, and came upon a gorgeous cliffy area over the inlet to the pond, replete with massive icicles on the face of a granite cliff. Last but not least, my husband found a gold mine of spruce gum on a downed spruce tree and I chewed this gum the whole walk back to the car.

There are always new things to discover in old places, if we are open to them, and even though I have been writing about breaking out of my routines through my trip to Belize, the real challenge, and the greatest benefit, lies in breaking out of routines and finding a beginner’s mind right at home.

Zoe Weil
Author of Most Good, Least Harm and
Above All, Be Kind

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