In 1987, I found my life’s work and discovered that this work had a name: humane education. I taught several week-long summer courses to students in Pennsylvania – one on environmental preservation and another on animal protection. We went on field trips, viewed videos filmed undercover, had great discussions, and focused on what we could do to make a difference. I watched in amazement as these 12- and 13-year-olds became passionate, committed changemakers virtually overnight. I’ve stayed in touch with a few of them, and they are now extraordinary adults, still working to make a difference for people, other species, and the environment. One of them recently told a group of people that that humane education course changed his life. Since teaching these courses, my commitment to humane education has never wavered. I believe it is the most effective and important way to create an informed, conscious, and caring generation, and to prepare young people to take their place as global citizens and solutionaries who will make the world a better place for all through whatever professions they pursue.

Between 1985 and 1996, I taught approximately 100,000 students about the problems we face and the solutions we can create. That experience deepened my passion for humane education and made me want to see comprehensive humane education grow and spread. The problem was that there were only a handful of us who were teaching about the interconnected problems of human oppression, rampant consumerism, animal abuse, and environmental destruction, and in order to solve global, systemic problems and create a world in which all of us can live peacefully and humanely, we needed a humane education movement in which all teachers were humane educators, all schools offered comprehensive humane education, and everyone was exposed to humane education in their lives. In 1996 I co-founded the Institute for Humane Education (IHE) to train other people to be humane educators and to advance this important work, and now the comprehensive humane education movement is spreading, thanks to all our graduates, students, workshop and online course participants, and concerned citizens like you.

As the president of the Institute for Humane Education I work as a full-time volunteer, and it is a privilege and a joy to be part of a movement that has the potential to solve every problem we face and create a restored, healthy, and humane world for all. As Henry David Thoreau once said, “There are thousands hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the roots.” Nothing makes me more hopeful for the future than humane educators teaching and inspiring others, whether in schools and colleges, through the arts, in the media, through non-profits, in writing and filmmaking, or at camps and learning centers. They are doing the work that will foster solutions at their roots. Thanks for all you are doing to teach and inspire others and to create a humane world.

In addition to creating IHE’s M.Ed., M.A., and graduate certificate programs and leading IHE’s Sowing Seeds and MOGO (Most Good) workshops, Zoe Weil is the author of Nautilus Silver Medal winner, Most Good, Least Harm: The Simple Principle for a Better World and a Meaningful Life (2009), The Power and Promise of Humane Education (2004), and Above All, Be Kind: Raising a Humane Child in Challenging Times (2003). She has also written books for young people, including Moonbeam Gold Medal winner, Claude and Medea: The Hellburn Dogs (2007), about 12-year-old activists inspired by an eccentric substitute teacher to right wrongs where they find them, and So, You Love Animals: An Action-Packed, Fun-Filled Book to Help Kids Help Animals (2004). She has written numerous articles on humane education and humane living and has appeared frequently on radio and television. She has also given an acclaimed TEDx talk, “The World Becomes What You Teach.”

Zoe speaks regularly at universities, conferences, schools, churches, and in communities around the United States and Canada and overseas. She has also served as a consultant on humane education to people and organizations around the world.

Zoe received a Master’s in Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School (1988) and a Master’s in English Literature from the University of Pennsylvania (1983). She is certified in Psychosynthesis counseling, a form of psychotherapy which relies upon the intrinsic power of each person’s imagination to promote growth, creativity, health, and transformation.

Zoe lives with her husband, teenage son, and several rescued animals at the Institute for Humane Education in Surry, Maine.

You can contact Zoe at zoe@HumaneEducation.org.