My 50th Birthday Roast Video

Posted on July 29, 2011 by zoeweil

For today’s blog post, I wanted to share a video roast that my husband put together for me for my 50th birthday. I thought it was hilarious. Enjoy!

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 TEDx talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“

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Embracing Our Devils?

Posted on July 27, 2011 by zoeweil

In a recent blog post on turning 50 and letting go of demons I reflected upon two specific demons that plague me: worry and wanting things to be different. I wrote about wishing to banish these demons as I pass the half-century mark of life.

And then today I read this quote from Rainer Maria Rilke:

“If my devils are to leave me, I am afraid my angels will take flight as well.”

Reading this quote reminded me of another quote by physicist Niels Bohr: “The opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.”

For years I have wanted to rid myself of those personal demons that diminish my and others’ lives, but at the same time I have recognized that virtually all my worst qualities have a corresponding positive side, and vice versa.

Isn’t this true for most of us? The easy-going person may lack drive. The argumentative person may be the kind of critical thinker who can solve problems. The highly compassionate person may find the cruelty in the world unbearable and become impotent. The person who has trouble being in the present moment may be highly efficient as their mind keeps working every second thinking about the future.

And so while on the one hand I want to rid myself of my personal demons, I so appreciated reading Rilke’s quote this afternoon, reminding me that my personality – good and bad – is made up of light and shadow. In banishing the shadow, I might banish some of the light.

Thanks Rilke.

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 TEDx talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“

Image courtesy of simon plestenjak via Creative Commons.

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Filed under: Inner Peace, MOGO (Most Good) | Tagged: , , , , , | 1 Comment »

If You Can’t Beat ‘Em, Join ‘Em or… Transformation at Fifty

Posted on July 25, 2011 by zoeweil

My son is about to turn eighteen. For his eighteenth birthday he plans to get a tattoo. Although I like the image he’s chosen – of a rock climber silhouetted against a gorgeous setting sun – I don’t think getting a tattoo at eighteen is wise. I’ve told him so in every possible way. I’ve provided every reason I can think of to wait until he’s older. To no avail. All I’ve created is friction between us.

He was studying Spanish and living with a family in Uruguay for five weeks earlier this summer, and while he was gone, I had a change of heart. Others helped me to realize that getting a tattoo, especially of an image that my son (who’s been rock climbing since he was five) has loved for almost two years now, is a form of self-expression. While it’s true that some may judge him negatively because of it, I cannot know whether there might be others who judge him positively.

So I let go of my antipathy toward this inevitability, and I told my husband, and he said…

“Maybe I’ll get a tattoo.”

You would have to know my husband to know how shocking this comment was; but my response to him was even more shocking, even to me:

“Maybe I will, too.”

Maybe I will too?! I have always said that I would never get a tattoo. I’ve never much liked them; I don’t like pain, and I’m always changing, so I can’t imagine ever wanting a permanent mark on my body. I couldn’t believe I said this. It made no sense.

And then, as the days went on I found myself realizing that I would do this strange thing, so unlike me, so tremendously out of character.

When we next Skyped our son in Uruguay, I told him about my change of heart about his tattoo, and he said, “So you want me to get it?” I responded that I didn’t want him to get it, but that I no longer felt he shouldn’t, and that I accepted his getting it if he wanted to. And then my husband said that we were planning to get tattoos on his birthday, too, and he was so psyched to have his parents join him during this odd family bonding rite of passage for his eighteenth birthday.

I’m planning on getting a luna moth tattoo. The symbolism works for someone who believes she will always be changing, because nothing represents the capacity for transformation to me more than a caterpillar spinning a cocoon, dissolving into genetic goo, and then changing into a completely different being (one who flies!) out of the same DNA. Plus luna moths only live for a week, reminding me that all we have is the present moment. Life is fleeting. Make it beautiful and meaningful each day and don’t worry about what’s ahead that we have no control over. Plus, if ever there was a constant in my life it’s my love of animals. That’s not changing, so an animal tattoo is fitting.

And if nothing else, this tattoo is a reminder that even at 50, I can transform from a person who disliked tattoos and would have bet money I’d never, ever, EVER get one, into someone who is planning to go under the proverbial needle in a couple of weeks.

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 TEDx talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“

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A Tribute Video for the Institute for Humane Education

Posted on July 22, 2011 by zoeweil

At the Institute for Humane Education we’ve just celebrated our 15th anniversary. On July 2, we held a big bash, during which we showed a short (9 minute) tribute video compiled from two hours of videos sent to us by friends, graduates, and supporters. For my blog post today, I wanted to share it:

Enjoy!

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 TEDx talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“

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On Turning 50: Letting Go of Demons & Focusing on Creating a Better World

Posted on July 20, 2011 by zoeweil

I turned 50 last week. I’m more fit than at 20, and much happier too. My life feels meaningful and purposeful, and the dominant emotion I experience when I attend to my life is gratitude. But there are still some demons that haunt me, and they don’t abate. I’ve tried to keep them at bay for decades and all my efforts simply keep them from gaining much more traction. I haven’t cast them out.

The biggest one is the “Things aren’t the way I want them to be and they should be different” demon. This is an easy demon to cast out when the thing I want to be different is something I have control over. But when it’s another person’s behavior – especially someone close to me – and I have no control, but still perseverate on their failures to be different, I create suffering: suffering for me certainly, but also suffering for them.

The next biggest demon is worry. I worry a lot. I can catastrophize in a nanosecond. I worry about so many things: family members, of course, but also whether I’ll make a connecting flight; whether I offended someone with something I said; whether we’ll hit peak oil before we have alternative clean fuels; whether we’ll have honey bees in a decade and who will pollinate if we don’t; whether so many species will disappear that a cascade of extinctions will threaten everything we know; whether the twinges I feel in my leg will turn back into debilitating sciatica. You get the picture.

Yet worrying serves no purpose at all.

It might seem that these two demons might be motivators for my changemaking work, but they aren’t. If anything they are impediments. What motivates me to devote my days to my work at the Institute for Humane Education and to creating a generation of solutionaries able to solve global challenges is vision, hope, and love — not worry and frustration that things aren’t the way I want.

In reaching the half-century mark, my goal is to practice letting go of these tenacious demons that have glommed onto me. And I know that this is no easy task. It’s going to require all my own tenacity to refuse to indulge these demons, to prevent them from continuing to forge grooves and pathways in my brain that become ever more entrenched, to divert initial worry and frustration into a new groove of acceptance.

By acceptance I do not mean that I will not seek to create change, but rather to choose where and how to influence and help so that I am more successful, joyful, effective and loving in the process.

That’s my goal for the next 50 years, and I realize that it will take discipline and daily practice to achieve it.

Wish me luck.

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 TEDx talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“

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Filed under: gratitude, humane education, Inner Peace, joy, mindfulness, MOGO (Most Good) | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Humane Educators’ Toolbox: 12 Angry Men

Posted on July 18, 2011 by zoeweil

I watched the classic film, 12 Angry Men, recently, and I was struck by the ways in which the film so accurately depicts what social psychology experiments reveal about people’s willingness to suspend their own thinking faculties to go along with the group [in particular, the Asch experiments, in which individuals deny their own senses to agree with the majority, demonstrating the lengths (no pun intended) to which people will go to conform].

In the movie, had one man’s commitment to integrity and reason not prevailed, another man, reasonably likely to have been innocent of the crime he was charged with, would have been electrocuted. It is not a surprise that only one man of twelve was willing to step out on the proverbial limb in a group vote in which he was the only dissenter, nor is it a surprise that some went along with the prevailing view without much thought – easily swayed and influenced.

We all know these characters. We all know people whose beliefs can be too easily altered by new ideas; others whose beliefs are so entrenched that reason and rationality cannot sway them; others who stand out as extremely clear-headed and models of critical thinking; others who don’t care enough to be bothered to think very hard for themselves and will follow the crowd no matter what; others whose deep emotional needs and pain influence their ability to think rationally. And most of us realize that there is a little bit of each of such characters in ourselves.

The challenge for each of us, I believe, is to strive to be like the character played by Henry Fonda, a man committed to truth and aware that truth is often elusive; a man unafraid of speaking his truth even when it differs from others; someone whose heart and mind work together toward a goal of integrity and honesty; a person whose mind is not so open his “brain falls out,” but who exemplifies open-mindedness.

This film is an excellent tool for any critical thinking or criminal justice course, as well as for a course in American History. Though fiction, it offers much food for thought and discussion. As a supplement to the social psychology films at the Heroic Imagination Project website, 12 Angry Men offers humane educators – those who wish to ensure that their students have the knowledge, tools, and motivation to be solutionaries for a just, compassionate world – an excellent opportunity to use film and culture to explore issues of character and choicemaking.

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 TEDx talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“

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Connecting Reverence-Building With Every Day Actions

Posted on July 15, 2011 by zoeweil

During our Educating for a Better World Summer Institute for teachers, Caroline Overbeek (a soon-to-be graduate of our humane education certificate program), led a reverence-building activity with us that fits nicely into a science curriculum or as a launch point for a writing assignment in language arts (and which is a wonderful and inspiring activity for anyone).

Caroline asked us to lie down in a circle, with our heads in the center but not touching anyone else, and to imagine that we were lying on the grass (this would be even better if done on the grass, but even in a classroom this works well). She led us through a guided meditation that invited us to imagine the atoms in our bodies and the atoms in the grass – similar of course, even though in different composition. As we relaxed more and more and realized our atomic connection to the grass and beyond, she invited us to associate this feeling of connection with the Earth with an everyday action. Telling us to imagine ourselves doing this action and to connect it to this feeling, she gave us a minute to keep replaying the image in our imaginations before ending the 15 minute activity.

That night, when I lifted my pillow on my bed to prop it against the headboard to read, I thought of Caroline and the feeling of connection with the Earth. This is because that was the everyday activity I had chosen. I’d long since forgotten about Caroline’s activity (it was one of many in a very packed day, with many other events before I went to bed), but there was that connection planted that morning. Every night since I’ve thought of Caroline and felt a peace descend as I climb into bed to read before sleep.

Divorced as so many of us and our children are from nature, this activity offers a possibility for connection that is profoundly important. We will care for and protect what we love, understand and revere, and something as simple as this science-oriented, reverence-building activity can set the stage for daily reminders of our connection with the Earth and our interdependence.

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 TEDx talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“

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Affluence and Affluenza

Posted on July 13, 2011 by zoeweil

The film and book, Affluenza, explores the mostly modern condition of relentless consumerism, debt, yearning for more, dissatisfaction and sluggishness, and a treadmill life that leaves people feeling empty and stressed simultaneously. In our recent Summer Institute for teachers, high school English teacher, Mark McGonagle, came up with an activity that explored affluenza through a quiz for students whose score determined whether or not they “suffered” from this condition.

A question arose. Is affluence the same as affluenza? The answer is clearly “no,” yet there is sometimes a subtle (and often a not so subtle) judgment by social justice and environmental activists against those who are affluent. It’s true enough that most who are affluent are bigger consumers than those who aren’t. They have larger houses filled with more stuff, more vehicles (and motorboats and sometimes private jets), travel for leisure more often, and so on, contributing to greater environmental destruction than those who do not have these luxuries. They certainly appear to suffer from affluenza. Yet, it’s critical not to lump affluence with affluenza. Having money can be a phenomenal tool for change, and I know people with money who are profoundly generous, live simply, and create substantial systemic change through their donations to social change organizations. This could and perhaps should be the model for affluence.

Most people want to be more affluent, and most want money to buy more stuff. What if we were to transform the image of affluence? Imagine if money were perceived less as a vehicle for luxury and more as a vehicle for the power to create positive change. If we identified those affluent people who have eschewed personal luxury in favor of a deep and abiding commitment to use their wealth for systemic good, we would have models for “compassionate consumerism” that went beyond fair trade, eco-friendly, cruelty-free products and that embraced thrift and simplicity coupled with generosity and philanthropy for a better world for all.

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 TEDx talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“

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The Day We Buried Grif

Posted on July 11, 2011 by zoeweil

We buried our beloved dog, Griffin, Sunday, July 10, and I wrote this poem in his honor for my blog post today.

The Day We Buried Grif
by Zoe Weil

We buried our dog this morning
In heavy clay soil.
He was light on the earth
a tiny three-legged boy
still so soft,
though no longer fierce.

We remembered him aloud,
sharing stories,
His love affair with our big three-legged shepherd;
our son’s biggest scar
when he tried to prevent him from biting friends
who’d stopped by and were chased back
to their car
by pugilistic Grif.

He likes that scar.
He loved that dog.
Whom he’d rescued at two and a half
Saying in no uncertain terms to his reluctant parents,
“We HAVE to adopt him,”
and we did.

Fifteen plus years together;
our son’s whole childhood,
the photos in the albums like proof,
one after another:
Griffin in his arms;
Griffin and he floating on a raft;
Griffin in his lap;
Griffin on his bed.
Always with Griffin,
the dog he saved.

Grif is in the earth beside Sophie, next to Maia,
flanked by Uba, Buddha, Pere, and Mish,
marking the inexorable passage of time,
marking years of love,
of joyous puppy and kittenhood,
and the solid decade each of companionship and devotion,
and then arthritis and kidney failure and decline
and their inevitable deaths.

Meanwhile, three others wait in the house,
banished from this burial.
Elsie, two;
Ruby, eight;
Sir Simon, thirteen.
The cycle continues.
Loving them a bit more tenderly today;
The day we buried Grif.

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Basking

Posted on July 8, 2011 by zoeweil

It’s been quite a week at the Institute for Humane Education. We held our annual Summer Institute, Educating for a Better World, with a full house, and in the next several blog posts I’ll be sharing some of the fantastic humane education activities the students presented. The Summer Institute was followed immediately by our first reunion for graduates of our master’s degree and certificate program, which was followed that same night by our 15th anniversary celebration. I’ll be sharing the video tribute from that event here, too.

On July 4, I took the day off and hiked a favorite mountain with my husband. I brought my small but high-powered magnifying glass and took my time noticing the tiny berry-like fruiting bodies of moss, the green, purple and orange stripes (seriously!) of a deer fly’s eye that my husband caught as he was about to be bitten, a dozen kinds of lichen (swelled with moisture on a humid day) all on a single rock, and much more. I watched low clouds I could almost touch zoom and whirlpool as I lay down at the peak and stared upward as the sun burned them off and turned the day bright, and I reveled in the pleasure I take in seeing our dogs so happy.

Stay tuned.

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 TEDx talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“

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