World in Conversation Project

Posted on January 31, 2011 by zoeweil

Since my TEDx talk was released, I have been receiving lots of emails from people wanting to learn how to implement the ideas I shared. I’ve also been hearing from humane educators and groups doing fantastic work across the globe. For my next several blog posts, I wanted to share some of their great work.

In a recent blog post about Sam Richards’ outstanding TEDx talk on empathy, I talked about the ways in which Richards so masterfully modeled the elements of humane education. Sam Richards is also the co-director of a fabulous humane education program at Pennsylvania State University – the World in Conversation Project – which provides a facilitated forum for important discussions around race. Check it out.

For a better world through education,

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of Most Good, Least Harm, The Power and Promise of Humane Education, Claude and Medea, and Above All, Be Kind

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Teaching for a Positive Future

Posted on January 28, 2011 by zoeweil

Since my TEDx talk was released, I have been receiving lots of emails from people wanting to learn how to implement the ideas I shared. I’ve also been hearing from humane educators and groups doing fantastic work across the globe. In my next several blog posts, I will be sharing some of their great work; but to address the most common question I’ve been receiving: “How can I learn more about how to put these ideas into practice?” I wanted to share with you some upcoming opportunities.

The Institute for Humane Education (IHE) is offering its month-long, online course, Teaching for a Positive Future, starting February 7. This course (which offers CEUs from the University of Maine) offers educators anywhere in the world the opportunity to dive into the issues that comprise humane education (human rights, environmental preservation and animal protection); dive into themselves and their passion for teaching; dive into conversation with other passionate educators who want to teach for a better world, and develop new ideas, approaches, and enthusiasm for bringing the most pressing issues of our time into their classrooms.

We have other opportunities for more in depth training as well, including our Summer Institute for Teachers, June 27-July 1, at our beautiful facility in coastal Maine, and our soon-to-be re-launched graduate and certificate programs in Humane Education.

 

For a better world through education,

 

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of Most Good, Least Harm, The Power and Promise of Humane Education, Claude and Medea, and Above All, Be Kind

 

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The Scourge of Hateful Commentary – The Call to Be Kind

Posted on January 26, 2011 by zoeweil

Yesterday, Yahoo! News placed an excerpt from my book, Most Good, Least Harm, (that had been posted awhile earlier by Simon & Schuster under the title “10 Easy Ways to Become a Better Person”) on their front page. I found this out when my and the Institute for Humane Education’s websites got a surprisingly large number of hits, and when I started receiving hate mail.

The excerpt was from the end of Most Good, Least Harm in a section which offered a short summation about how to make choices that do the most good and least harm to oneself, other people, animals and the environment. The section was titled, “10 Principles for MOGO Living,” (MOGO being short for doing the most good and the least harm).

Personally, I would never have chosen the new title, “10 Easy Ways to Become a Better Person” for a number of reasons. First, I don’t teach about being a better person; I teach about making choices that do more good and less harm to ourselves and others. Second, the 10 principles are about choices that create a better world rather than better people. But despite the fact that the title could have been off-putting for a list about making MOGO choices, it was hard to believe the staggering outpouring of vitriol that followed. I have never been called so many names before, by people who know nothing about me other than from a short excerpt, taken out of context and given a misleading title, from a book I wrote that is meant to offer people ways to make their lives more meaningful while contributing to a healthier, more just, and more humane world.

The irony was that I’d already written a post for today. It was a short piece with links to several newspaper articles, one of which was the Wall Street Journal’s recent excerpt of Amy Chua’s new book, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, which elicited massive amounts of hate mail itself. I’d read that excerpt, and I, too, felt hostile toward Amy Chua. Now I know better than to judge Amy Chua by an excerpt. I pulled my blog post and wrote this instead.

It can be satisfying to vent our anger, especially from the safety of our computer keyboards, but it is damaging, not just to the recipients of our anger, but to all of us. When we fail to dig into information deeply and explore thoroughly, and when our discourse becomes crass and cruel, we close doors to understanding and learning.

I’ve learned from this experience to be ever more careful about my responses to what I read in the news, and to try, ever more diligently, to be kind.

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of Most Good, Least Harm and Above All, Be Kind

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Empathy’s Role in Education

Posted on January 26, 2011 by zoeweil

Check out this TEDx talk by Sam Richards, a sociology professor and co-director of Race Relations at Penn State:

At the Institute for Humane Education, we identify four elements as key to providing quality humane education. They include:

  1. Providing accurate information about pressing issues and challenges of our time.
  2. Fostering the 3 Cs of curiosity, creativity, and critical thinking.
  3. Instilling the 3 Rs of reverence, respect, and responsibility.
  4. Offering positive choices and the tools for becoming a solutionary.

Note how masterfully Sam Richards, in just 19 minutes, manages to employ the first three elements, while leaving viewers pondering their choices and their roles in addressing some of the challenges we face. What I particularly appreciate, as a humane educator, is that the entire talk, entitled “A Radical Experiment in Empathy,” is aimed at evoking the compassion that can lead us toward critical and creative thinking and problem-solving for a better world.

This is such an important talk which everyone should see, and a incredibly useful tool for teachers exploring complex, challenging, and critical issues in classrooms.

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

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Reflections on Waiting for Superman: Pouring Knowledge Into Children’s Brains ≠ Good Education

Posted on January 24, 2011 by zoeweil

The movie, Waiting for Superman, finally came to rural Maine, and I so I finally got to see it. There is so much in it that is so important and so true. For example: It is a travesty that so many of our children are not learning the basics and are not verbally, mathematically or scientifically literate. It is a travesty that terrible teachers cannot be fired. It is a travesty that there are so many failing schools which are failing kids. It is a travesty that kids have to participate in a lottery to go to a good school.

Yet there was a moment during the film that I found so stunningly off the mark that I wondered if I was really watching a film meant to spearhead an educational revolution. In the scene, cartoon children in a classroom have their heads opened so that information can be poured in. To depict the problem the movie addresses, one child’s head is opened and the pitcher of knowledge is poured next to her, missing its mark. The message from the movie? How horrible that we have knowledge to pour into children’s brains and we are failing to do so.

Eight years ago, at a humane education symposium that we hosted at the Institute for Humane Education, a brilliant teacher, Matt Wildman, shared a cartoon depicting a child whose head is opened while information is poured in. To all of us, it was the opposite of good teaching. It still is. That Waiting for Superman implicitly suggests that this is the goal of schooling – to pour information into our children – is part of the problem. Will they get higher test scores? Probably. Will they learn the basics? Probably. But should this really be our goal for our children’s education? Absolutely not.

In my recently uploaded TEDx talk, I talk about what I believe the goal of schooling should be and the role of the basics in that higher purpose. I believe that in a world rife with injustices and looming catastrophes we need to provide children with the knowledge, tools, and motivation to be solutionaries and to use the basics of verbal, mathematical, and scientific literacy in service to a higher purpose of transforming unhealthy and unsustainable systems into ones that are humane and restorative.

Waiting for Superman certainly exposes some of the core problems with our educational system, but its implicit solution is ultimately a meager one. If all we do is more successfully pour information into our kids so they can pass standardized tests, this will still be a travesty. In a world plagued by complex challenges, our children need to be critical and creative thinkers whose educations have prepared them to employ “the basics” in service to innovation, brilliance, health, peace and joy.

Zoe Weil, President of the Institute for Humane Education
TEDx talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach”
Author of Most Good, Least Harm

Image courtesy of matt.janz via Creative Commons.

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My TED Talk: The World Becomes What You Teach

Posted on January 21, 2011 by zoeweil

I’m delighted to share my TEDxDirigo talk, The World Becomes What You Teach:

If you enjoy it and think it’s valuable, please share it with others so that together we can educate a generation of solutionaries. I welcome your comments as well.

Zoe Weil, President of the Institute for Humane Education

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Zeitoun and Humane Education

Posted on January 19, 2011 by zoeweil

My son, a junior in high school, is taking a course entitled “Shared Voices,” an integrated class that brings together American History and American Literature, so that what students read for English is reflected in what they study in history. I love the whole idea of this course, as the separation of disciplines often leads students away from the integration that would make each subject even more relevant and meaningful. When I was buying my son’s texts for the semester, I was excited by the reading list and offered to read the books at the same time in case he wanted to talk about them outside of class.

The first book he was assigned was Dave Eggers’, Zeitoun, the true story of Abdulrahman Zeitoun, a Syrian-American with a successful contracting and painting business in New Orleans. During Hurricane Katrina, Zeitoun chose to stay behind as the city’s populace, and his own family, evacuated. He did so not only out of stubbornness, but to protect the many properties they owned and were responsible for.

Zeitoun found himself feeling alive and purposeful as never before as he used his canoe to rescue people during the days following the flooding of the city and fed the dogs left behind in people’s homes. After a week of this heroism, Zeitoun and three others at his home were falsely arrested and brought to a newly erected jail at the Greyhound Bus Station. Zeitoun, not only completely innocent, but also the kind of man who should serve as a model of integrity, compassion, and honesty to us all, was abused and mistreated in ways that not only defy our core American values but our stated system of jurisprudence. The book serves as a wake up call to all those who assume our legal and punitive systems are relatively fail-safe and humane.

The book was captivating, enraging, inspiring, motivating, a profoundly important read, and a perfect example of humane education in action – bringing something deeply relevant and important into the study of history and English, igniting critical, and hopefully creative thinking, as the students grapple with the complexities of our modern society, government, religious freedom, incarceration and punishment, the military and legal systems and their potential breakdowns, intolerance and stereotypes, and most importantly, everyday heroism which lies at the core of this book in the character of Zeitoun.

As a newly published book there is no option for reading CliffsNotes, no likelihood that students will fail to engage with the text or the subject. Instead there are two teachers and a supportive high school who have crafted a course to awaken, inspire, enlighten, engage, and help make meaningful the critical study of both American literature and history. Every American should read this book. I’m just so happy my son is reading it in school.

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of The Power and Promise of Humane Education, Most Good, Least Harm and Claude and Medea

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Phil Zimbardo’s Secret Power of Time and What It Means for Our Kids

Posted on January 17, 2011 by zoeweil

Take a look at this RSA Animate video of Phil Zimbardo’s The Secret Power of Time.

As I watched this, I wondered what it would take for all of us to have a healthy balance of past, present, and future orientation so that we would all be able to learn from and appreciate our pasts, live fully in our presents, and be cognizant of and choose wisely based upon the goals we have for the future. Personally, I do not think that it is all that wise for most people to live predominantly in one of these categories and neglect the others. While it’s commonplace today for busy, future-oriented people (like me I’d add) to strive to live “in the present,” I think the real goal for people like me ought to be to live more in the present, and to find that elusive balance that enables us to be fully engaged right now while able and willing to reflect upon the past and eager to live in such a way to create a positive and healthy future for ourselves and others.

When Phil Zimbardo discusses the ways in which our children are now digitally rewired and fundamentally different than their parents in relation to time, and points out the ways in which traditional schooling is a disaster for so many kids – boys in particular – one wonders what the solution might be to raise a generation that is balanced in regards to time in today’s world. There are many ideas that lead to this balance for our children: time spent in nature where wonder may be cultivated; unstructured play time; and limited screen time to allow for a leisurely present that leads to joy and creativity in the early years of life that is later balanced with lessons in history (past oriented) and exploration of current conflicts and problems (in the present) that elicit creative ideas for system-changes and solutions (for a healthy future).

I believe it’s time to abandon any judgments about which orientation is “best,” as the early part of Phil Zimbardo’s talk reveals is happening in Italy, and to do away with the idea that our goal should be to “live in the present” or “wisely plan for the future” or “focus on learning from the past.” We need all of these aspects of ourselves together to lead lives that are joyful and wise, and we need to raise a generation that has the capacity to find the healthiest balance, too.

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of The Power and Promise of Humane Education and Most Good, Least Harm: A Simple Principle for a Better World and Meaningful Life

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What Would Motivate Our Kids?

Posted on January 14, 2011 by zoeweil

In another great RSA Animate YouTube film, Daniel Pink shares what really motivates us. It’s not what we think. After watching this video, I wondered what schools might do with this information.

Currently, our schools use grades and privileges to both motivate and punish students. High grades and special privileges are supposed motivators, and poor grades and removal of privileges are punishments. But extrapolating from Daniel Pink’s research, one wonders whether the incentive of good grades, or the fear of bad grades, and the incentive of greater privileges and the fear of removal of privileges, are really the motivators that we assume. Probably not. Not only does the goal of achieving a high grade often lead to rote memorization (often forgotten) and cheating, it also separates what should be the real goal: learning, from the real reward: learning!

Most of us love learning, and as this video describes, people are willing to learn a musical instrument on their own time with no external reward in sight. They’re also willing to share their learning with others, again with no extrinsic reward. When learning becomes its own motivation and reward, we’re golden, and when we realize this simple fact and hire engaging teachers who love to learn and love to share their learning, and abandon our carrot and stick approach in schools, we may find that our students astonish us with their capacity to learn, produce new ideas, and go on to teach what they know to others.

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of The Power and Promise of Humane Education and Most Good, Least Harm: A Simple Principle for a Better World and Meaningful Life

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Ken Robinson’s New Talk on Education Paradigms

Posted on January 12, 2011 by zoeweil

Take a look at Ken Robinson’s new talk on education paradigms through RSA Animate:

Ken Robinson is so brilliant about identifying the systemic problems in education that perpetuate and escalate ennui, lack of creativity, and the failure of wisdom to take root (that Barry Schwartz discusses in his recent TED talk).

What are the solutions to these problems?

Here are five, and they comprise the bones of a new book I’m working on about how to solve all of our problems in education and the world through a new vision of schooling:

  1. Embrace a new purpose for schooling: to educate a generation of solutionaries. Create curricula, courses, overarching topics, structures, clubs, and teaching approaches with this purpose always in mind.
  2. Abandon No Child Left Behind in favor of creative, useful assessment strategies built upon a this new goal for schooling.
  3. Turn teaching into a high status, highly creative, well-paying, sought-after job; have students evaluate teachers and have teachers assessed by the new goal for schooling articulated above; replace poor teachers with the great ones who will be lining up for the opportunity to have such a meaningful, important, well-funded job.
  4. Restructure how schools are paid for and create real school choice for every family; public funding for schooling based on zip code is inconsistent with our core values. Providing equal and adequate funding for every child that can travel with the child to any school will provide opportunities for creative school approaches to flourish and a variety of teaching and learning styles to meet the needs of each child.
  5. Abandon grades and excessive homework; grades can become a holy grail for kids motivated to get into prestigious colleges, but they are often an end in themselves, encouraging rote memorization (quickly forgotten) and cheating; independent work is important, but can be folded into the school day rather than requiring round-the-clock work from kids, something we don’t expect from adults. Instead, find creative and effective assessments that include narrative and evaluation of projects that serve the new goal for schooling articulated above.

Stay tuned for more.

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of The Power and Promise of Humane Education and Most Good, Least Harm: A Simple Principle for a Better World and Meaningful Life

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