Get the Facts Right, Even When It Hurts

Posted on October 4, 2012 by zoeweil
Image courtesy of dreamsjung via Creative Commons.

For my blog post today, I’m sharing a recent essay I wrote for Care2.com, an online community for people passionate about creating a better world. Here’s an excerpt from “Get the Facts Right Even When It Hurts”:

“I’ve been pondering the more than 400 comments from my last post at Care2.com: “Since other animals are predators, why shouldn’t we eat animals.” Some were supportive; some provided constructive feedback; some were nasty. Many went back and forth with increasing vitriol between those commenting. It was at times disappointing and discouraging, but mostly, it was very disturbing.

Too often commenters bandied about “facts” that weren’t facts at all. For example, some supporting the overall thesis of my essay said that humans are herbivores. Others arguing against the thesis of my essay said that humans require meat. Neither claim is true. Some said that science reveals that plants can suffer and feel just like animals, but there is no science to support such a claim. These false “facts” were flung about, and then argued about, with everyone able to find a website or article to support their view, but actual truth was in short supply. And truth is precious.

 I’m worried about our culture’s relationship with truth. I’m concerned that we’re not educating our children to parse the messages they receive and determine what is true and what is not. When anything can be written and spread on the Internet, then anyone can argue that they hold the truth because they read it on a website. Without the ability to distinguish opinion from fact, and without the capacity to evaluate information critically, we will be at the mercy of whomever does the best job at marketing and at saying what the majority wishes to hear.”

Read the complete essay.

~ Zoe

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 TEDxConejo talk: “Solutionaries”
My TEDxDirigo talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“

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Mike Daisey’s Lies Must Not Make Us Apathetic or Cynical

Posted on March 23, 2012 by zoeweil
Image courtesy of Yutaka Tsutano via Creative Commons.

For my blog post today, I’m sharing a recent post I wrote for Care2.com, an online community for people passionate about creating a better world. Here’s an excerpt from “Mike Daisey’s Lies Must Not Make Us Apathetic or Cynical”:

“On January 18, I wrote “An Eighth Grader’s Letter to Apple’s CEO, Tim Cook.” I had taught a week-long humane education course, and on the first day I had the students listen to “Mike Daisey and the Apple Factory,” a This American Life broadcast of monologuist Mike Daisey about his visit to the Foxconn factories in Shenzhen, China, where he interviewed employees making Apple products.

…this past weekend, I, along with millions of other people, learned that Mike Daisey had fabricated details in his story about his visit to China. This American Life devoted their most recent show to a retraction. I immediately contacted the teacher of the 8th graders to whom I’d offered that class in January. I knew I had to talk to them. But before I heard back from the teacher I received an email from Abbey, the girl whose letter I had published in Care2.

She had seen a Wall Street Journal headline about Mike Daisey’s fabrication and was shocked. She had remembered that I told the class not to believe me, and had generalized this statement as I’d hoped they all would so that she retained a commitment to critical thinking; but it was clear that she wondered who to believe. I feared that she – and others – would begin to become cynical and apathetic, a deadly combination that has the capacity to profoundly disempower us.

Read the complete post.

For a humane world,

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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Living According to Our Values Means Questioning Our Choices

Posted on December 15, 2011 by zoeweil
On the way to the airport in Guayaquil, Ecuador, I met an observant Jewish man who looked out of place with his yarmulke and long coat in this Latin American, equatorial country. I asked why he had come to Guayaquil and he told me that he is hired to certify kosher food in countries around the world. Waiting in line to check in, I asked him whether in addition to certifying slaughter as kosher he also observed the conditions under which animals were raised, he said he did not. He had, in fact, never visited a modern confinement agriculture system. I talked about how inhumane they were, and he was skeptical.

He asked how I knew they were inhumane. And so I described to him what I have seen myself: hundreds of thousands of chickens crammed into cages in typical egg factories and calves chained at the neck in tiny crates in modern veal factories. I talked about my studies with an observant rabbi who is a vegetarian because he insists not only in following the letter of the law (kosher slaughter was, at its inception, far more humane than typical slaughter of the time), but also the spirit of the law (which clearly rejected cruelty to animals). Only slowly did I seem to pique his interest. I gave him my card and encouraged him to learn more for himself.

Later, I reflected upon this man’s work. He is trying to do what he considers God’s work. He is attempting to deeply live according to his values. Yet, it is harder and harder to do this without an equally strong commitment to learning more, to bringing our inquiry to our choices and actions, to insisting upon greater understanding than what we are likely to obtain from our culture, whether observant Jewish culture or popular culture.

I hope that our brief interaction will spur him to learn more and consider how he can more genuinely live according to his religious beliefs. He mentioned that at his age, he might not pursue more knowledge in this area, but he hesitated as he said this. I like to think he will reconsider and open himself to new knowledge so that he might more fully live his values.

For a humane world,

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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Do You Tune Out or Tune In to Atrocities?

Posted on August 15, 2011 by zoeweil

Zoe’s been busy with speaking & traveling and didn’t have time to write a blog post for today, so here’s a repost from 11/19/10. Enjoy!

I’ve always been struck by people saying that they don’t want to know about a particular atrocity or cruelty or problem in the world. It’s not uncommon to hear this from adults (though rarely from youth). I think the motivation to avoid new knowledge stems from people’s desire to live with integrity. That might sound like an odd statement, but if you learn something that calls into question choices you make, and you really don’t want to change, then you’ll be faced with the unpleasant experience of living without integrity. Better not to know. Ignorance is bliss after all.

But I’m struck by this head-in-the-sand behavior because it’s foreign to me. I’ve always wanted to know. Even if I am unready or unwilling to make a different choice, I’d rather know and live with my discomfort than not know. I’d rather have the opportunity to live more closely aligned with my values.

Over time, though, I’m beginning to understand the disinclination to know. I do get tired of all the bad news, of learning about more problems, of facing my own lack of integrity. This fatigue is helping me understand those people who say, “Don’t tell me about _______. I don’t want to know.” And understanding is a good thing. It helps me build bridges and offer smaller invitations. It helps me teach more wisely and carefully and inspire baby steps toward knowing. It keeps me from being self-righteous, and helps me maintain some humility.

Still, even when I get tired, I know there’s no other path for me. Maybe I’ll take a brief respite from the myriad books and videos that expose me to the grave and horrible problems in the world, but not for long. There’s work to do, and I don’t know how else to live with myself or to live in this imperfect world that needs our good work.

What about you?

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 Identity Photogr@phy via Creative Commons.

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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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To All People, But Especially Educators: Please Think Critically

Posted on December 27, 2010 by zoeweil

About 17 years ago, I went to see a chiropractor who came highly recommended to help alleviate back pain I’d been experiencing. I was surprised when the chiropractor chose to use “applied kinesiology” with me rather than traditional spinal manipulation. I had never heard of applied kinesiology and was open to anything that might help me, but when this chiropractor had me raise my arm and resist the pressure he applied to it to “test” various things, and then told me what foods I should and shouldn’t eat and what people I should and shouldn’t avoid based on whether my arm went down or stayed rigid upon his application of pressure, I was stunned that he was serious. I never went back to this chiropractor and marveled that someone had really charged me $80 to do something so ridiculous.

About ten years passed and suddenly this “applied kinesiology” was everywhere and friends of mine swore by it. I’ve learned not to be surprised by such things any more. We people believe all sorts of unsubstantiated things, constantly suspending our critical thinking. Much of the time there is no real harm done, and because our minds and bodies are so intertwined, believing that a practitioner will help us increases the likelihood that we’ll be helped measurably. But I worry about a populace that so readily believes nonsense and passes it off as fact, and I feel strongly that educators must be among the best critical thinkers because, more than anyone, teachers shape the future.

There is a desperate need for good critical thinking among the generation poised to solve – or not solve – the complex challenges before us. So this is my plea to teachers: teach your students to be critical and creative thinkers above all else, and refuse to let yourself be duped. Model the critical thinking your students need to possess themselves.

(For those who want to see a demonstration that debunks applied kinesiology, take a look at this YouTube video.)

For a thinking populace,

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

Image courtesy of critical thinking asylum via Creative Commons.

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Ethics Without Indoctrination

Posted on December 22, 2010 by zoeweil

In an essay entitled “Ethics Without Indoctrination” in a now 20-year-old issue of Educational Leadership, Richard W. Paul writes:

“If we bring ethics into the curriculum – and we should – we must take pains to ensure that we do so in a morally unobjectionable manner. This requires us to distinguish clearly between espousing the universal, general principles of morality shared by people of good will everywhere, and the very different manner of defending any particular application of these principles to actual life situations as conceived from a particular standpoint (liberal, conservative, radical, theistic, nontheistic, American, Russian, and the like.”

This is such an important point, whether written 1,000 years ago, 20 years ago, or 20 years hence, and it represents such a fine line to walk as an educator. Every one of us has a bias. Even if our bias lands us squarely in the mainstream and is perceived as moderate, it is still a bias. None of us is immune to the culture that shapes us, the opinions we hold dear, and the particular ideologies that embody our values in day to day life. It may appear that we have no bias if we find ourselves in the proverbial middle, but this is false. This is why Richard Paul’s quote above is so well-articulated, and so important for educators in general, and for humane educators who teach about the interconnected issues of human rights, animal protection, and environmental preservation in particular.

The universal principles of morality that Paul mentions would include such values as generosity, kindness, compassion, integrity, honesty, courage, perseverance, and wisdom and would exclude such things as cruelty, corruption, exploitation and abuse of others, deception, and so on. But what one person considers cruel may be different from what another considers cruel; and one person’s perception of exploitation may be another person’s perception of opportunity. How can the humane educator – whose goal it is to explore ethical issues, invite positive change, and encourage innovative ideas for a healthy world – balance her own vision of what that world looks like with what a particular student’s differing vision might be? How can the humane educator teach about ethical issues while painstakingly avoiding indoctrination?

Here are some ideas:

  • Choose one of these two approaches: Either be honest about your biases and explain their origin and your thinking OR choose to remain utterly impartial in discussions and encourage students to think critically, whether they are articulating your own position or one that you do not share. My personal approach is to be up front about my biases. The truth is that I am choosing texts that provide a point of view, and not choosing other texts. I may try to “balance” the reading, but there is a bias in my choices. Invite your students to critique you and your choices.
  • Be stalwart in your commitment to require those who share your views to be vigilant in supporting their perspective. And be open, receptive, and ready to learn from good critical thinking that leads to different positions. Further, be willing to being persuaded. Be as ready to change and grow from what you learn from your students as you hope they will be open to changing and growing because of you.
  • Agree on fundamentals. Invite students to generate a list of humanity’s best qualities and narrow these down until your class is in agreement that these are indeed fundamentals. Bring back all discussions about systems to whether and how they uphold these fundamental values. Be prepared for complexity and apparent contradictions. Remember physicist Niels Bohr’s statement that the opposite of a great truth is often a great truth.

All education has the potential to veer into indoctrination, not simply education about ethics. Be vigilant. Our world needs more critical and creative thinkers, not more believers.

Zoe Weil, President of the Institute for Humane Education and author of The Power and Promise of Humane Education and Most Good, Least Harm

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Do You Tune Out or Tune in To Atrocities?

Posted on November 19, 2010 by zoeweil

I’ve always been struck by people saying that they don’t want to know about a particular atrocity or cruelty or problem in the world. It’s not uncommon to hear this from adults (though rarely from youth). I think the motivation to avoid new knowledge stems from people’s desire to live with integrity. That might sound like an odd statement, but if you learn something that calls into question choices you make, and you really don’t want to change, then you’ll be faced with the unpleasant experience of living without integrity. Better not to know. Ignorance is bliss after all.

But I’m struck by this head-in-the-sand behavior because it’s foreign to me. I’ve always wanted to know. Even if I am unready or unwilling to make a different choice, I’d rather know and live with my discomfort than not know. I’d rather have the opportunity to live more closely aligned with my values.

Over time, though, I’m beginning to understand the disinclination to know. I do get tired of all the bad news, of learning about more problems, of facing my own lack of integrity. This fatigue is helping me understand those people who say, “Don’t tell me about _______. I don’t want to know.” And understanding is a good thing. It helps me build bridges and offer smaller invitations. It helps me teach more wisely and carefully and inspire baby steps toward knowing. It keeps me from being self-righteous, and helps me maintain some humility.

Still, even when I get tired, I know there’s no other path for me. Maybe I’ll take a brief respite from the myriad books and videos that expose me to the grave and horrible problems in the world, but not for long. There’s work to do, and I don’t know how else to live with myself or to live in this imperfect world that needs our good work.

What about you?

Zoe Weil
Author of Most Good, Least Harm

Image courtesy of Identity Photogr@phy via Creative Commons.

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Conscious and Conscientious Commitment to News

Posted on October 4, 2010 by zoeweil

My friend Gregg Krech, who is the director of the ToDo Institute, told me recently that he and his wife had decided to take a short vacation from the news. When this “vacation” was over, they decided to approach the news in a different way. From now on, he said, they would listen selectively and conscientiously and make a commitment to act upon any disturbing news they heard. They had missed the news about the floods in Pakistan during their news hiatus, and when they returned to selective listening and learned about the floods they immediately made an effort to help people in Pakistan.

I thought this approach to the news was marvelous, but in my work at the Institute for Humane Education, I don’t feel like I can personally take any sort of hiatus from the news, much as I sometimes I long to. The endless and relentless exposure to catastrophes, problems, challenges, atrocities, etc., is dizzying and sometimes numbing. There is no way do to enough and more often than not, outside of educating, I end up doing little.

But most people do not need to listen to the news all the time in order to do their work and be a good citizen, and in fact, they might be a better, more helpful and engaged citizen if they listened less often and responded with more engagement when they did.

If you find that you are becoming numb to the bad news that bombards you, perhaps you should try Gregg’s experiment. Maybe it’s time to pause and replenish and then come to the news with attention, compassion, wisdom, courage, and commitment. Try it for a week. See what happens. Can you maintain a commitment to do something to make a difference each time you do expose yourself to the news. Are you a better citizen this way? I welcome your thoughts and responses.

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

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