John Kasona: How Poachers Become Caretakers

Posted on January 31, 2013 by zoeweil

In a world in which we are endlessly encouraged to think in either/or terms; us versus them; the good guys versus the evildoers; Republican versus Democrat; environment versus jobs; it is refreshing to contemplate transformation, change, and solutionary thinking, as John Kasona does in his TEDx talk.

So take a look at how poachers became caretakers, and then remember that we have the power to transform unjust, cruel, and destructive systems.

All we have to do is teach our children that this is their job — and a job for all of us: to develop innovative solutions to our challenges and create a humane world.

~ 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“
My TEDxYouth@BFS “Educating for Freedom”

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The Novel Everyone Should Read: Unsaid

Posted on January 28, 2013 by zoeweil

Periodically, I read a novel that I want to include in our humane education graduate programs because the novel speaks a deeper, more poignant and more powerful truth than any work of non-fiction.

Unsaid by Neil Abramson is one such novel.

In it we learn about the depth of human compassion, as well as human cruelty, towards animals. We learn about the ways in which we are like other animals, rather than hearing the unceasing societal litany about our differences. We learn about the ways in which using our talents and skills in service to our values brings peace, solace, joy, and redemption. We learn about kindness. But lest you think this is a teacherly book with all this learning going on, it is also one of those page turners that is nearly impossible to put down.

If you read one book of fiction this year, let it be Unsaid.

~ 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“
My TEDxYouth@BFS “Educating for Freedom”

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Egg-Laying Hens in the News…At Last!

Posted on April 18, 2012 by zoeweil
Image courtesy of Farm Sanctuary via Creative Commons.

When Nicholas Kristof, columnist for The New York Times and co-author of Half the Sky, uses his platform to tell the world about institutionalized – and profoundly cruel – egg production, one realizes that things have changed. For the better.  

Half the Sky, which documents the exploitation and abuse of women and girls around the world, is a fantastic and important book – one that’s required reading for the students in our graduate programs at the Institute for Humane Education. But one of my frustrations with the book was the dismissive tone that periodically crept into its pages regarding nonhuman animals. It saddened me that Kristof felt compelled to diminish the plight of animals in a book that was about the oppression of those without power.

But just a couple of years after writing Half the Sky, Kristof is now condemning the abuse of chickens in egg production. Compassion, it seems, can be extended when we acknowledge that pain and abuse is pain and abuse. Comparisons between humans and animals are not necessary. We can address all forms of cruelty and in doing so increase the overall measure of compassion and kindness in the world. Thank you Nicholas Kristof, and thank you to the anonymous worker at Kreider Farms who willingly endured your own hell to bring to light the unimaginable hell endured by those hens whose eggs millions of people eat.

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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Redemption & Reunion: Elephants Never Forget

Posted on January 9, 2012 by zoeweil

I could write a blog post today about circuses; about captive elephants and their plight. There is much to say about our treatment of animals for entertainment, but I’ll write that post another day. For today, please enjoy this short, beautiful video, and then consider — before participating in forms of entertainment that use and exploit animals — whether you want your entertainment dollars spent in such a way.


Video from KarmaTube

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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Freedom & Love: The Beagle Freedom Project

Posted on December 26, 2011 by zoeweil

For my blog post today, I wanted to share this beautiful video of freedom and love. Enjoy.

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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Ecuador, Galapagos, and the Rights of Nature

Posted on December 12, 2011 by zoeweil
Image copyright Edwin Barkdoll.

My husband and I recently visited the Galapagos Islands in celebration of our 20th anniversary. It was a tough call choosing to go to the Galapagos. On the one hand, visiting this natural wonder has been a long-standing dream; on the other, such travel is anything but eco-friendly, given the fossil fuels necessary to transport us there. Plus, most trips to the Galapagos are cruise-based, which I didn’t want to support because of the high eco-footprint of cruise ships. It was important to me that if we were going to make this trip, we do so as responsibly as possible. We found an ecologically sensitive tour company which offered a trip that included the very rare opportunity of camping for a couple of nights, along with kayaking, staying in local hotels, hiking up to the rim of a volcano overlooking the second largest caldera in the world, and supporting local fishermen’s transitions into eco-friendly tourism (emphasizing wildlife viewing rather than taking).

The trip was amazing. Never have I experienced wildlife so unafraid of humans. Even the giant tortoises, who live to be close to 200 years old, would walk up to us, even though slaughter and exploitation are within their living memories. Sea lions chose to swim with us, playing, circling, and cavorting within inches of our faces, and ten dolphins came over to play in the bow waves of a boat we were on, seeming to perform for our entertainment as we cheered at each new feat. Even yellow warblers, who rarely come close at home, flitted around our feet. There were Marine Iguanas everywhere and gorgeous Sally Lightfoot crabs (the only animals afraid of us) and sea turtles and sharks who swam beside us, and frigates and boobies and congregations of golden eagle rays. For someone like me who loves animals, this was truly heaven.

What was gratifying was seeing the effort the Ecuadorian government goes to to ensure that the Galapagos Islands, once exploited, are now protected. Permission to camp was hard to come by and took years for approval, and our tour company ensured that we left the campground cleaner than we found it. Trips into the national park (which comprises 97% of the islands) had to be accompanied by a national park guide, and nothing could be removed (not a shell, a feather or a rock). The two-meter rule (you are not permitted to get any closer to the animals than two meters) was constantly reiterated. After decades of exploitation on the Galapagos Islands, the Ecuadorian government is making every effort to restore ecosystems and ensure the health of the native species. This is challenging in light of introduced species which threaten indigenous ones, but there are tireless efforts to right the wrongs of the past. The government has limited the number of people who can live on the Galapagos, and now, if you were not born there and aren’t married to a native of the Galapagos islands, your visit must end after three months.

Such attention to protection and restoration makes sense in a country that was the first to ratify a new constitution that affirms the rights of nature, stating that nature “has the right to exist, persist, maintain and regenerate its vital cycles, structure, functions and its processes in evolution.” It’s worth reading the articles to understand just how meaningful this really is. There is much that still needs to be done to truly protect the Galapagos, but it is gratifying to see what humans can choose to do as we evolve in our thinking about our place on this beautiful planet.

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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We Are All Potential Humane Educators

Posted on November 25, 2011 by zoeweil
Image courtesy of soozums
via Creative Commons.

As far as I know Anita Springer is not a teacher and doesn’t work in the field of education. But she is a humane educator, and in less than a minute, she made a lasting difference. She recounts the story of coming to the rescue of a snapping turtle being brutalized by parents and children alike in her housing development, yelling at them, “Don’t you adults realize what you are doing? You are teaching these children that it is okay to torture and torment an innocent, helpless animal who, in all likelihood, was there to dig a hole and bury its eggs.” She saves the turtle and years later learns just how big an impact she had.

Never forget that regardless of what you do for a living, you can be a humane educator, teaching through words and example how to be kind, compassionate, wise, and courageous.

(For another example of speaking out to help turtles, read about our own M.Ed. grad, Sophia Erlsten, and her experience in Trinidad.)

For a world full of humane educators,

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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Is Sea World a Slave Plantation? Lawsuit Says Yes

Posted on November 21, 2011 by zoeweil
Image courtesy of christopherallisonphotography
via Creative Commons.

Bruce Friedrich’s recent essay asks whether PETA’s lawsuit against Sea World, invoking the 13th Amendment’s prohibition of slavery and involuntary servitude to demand the freedom of five orcas, has merit. After all, the 13th Amendment was written to free humans from slavery. But not only is Bruce, the Senior Director for Strategic Initiatives for Farm Sanctuary, impressed by the legal initiative, he is delighted that Harvard Law School professor and constitutional scholar, Laurence Tribe, finds that the suit does indeed have merit. Read his thought-provoking essay and judge for yourself.

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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Exposing the Impact of Our Choices on Nonhuman Animals

Posted on September 23, 2011 by zoeweil
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 Exposing the Impact of Our Choices on Nonhuman Animals:

“In 1985, I was fascinated by what I’d read about Sarah, a chimpanzee who could use a symbolic language to communicate, so I contacted Dr. David Premack, the principal researcher working with Sarah and other chimps at the University of Pennsylvania primate research lab, to volunteer. I’ll never forget meeting Sarah.

… Sarah lived alone in her cage. The four other chimps at the lab were only three years old, and I was told that Sarah might harm them, so this social animal was confined permanently in solitude. She had long since refused to continue with her language training, so her life consisted largely of watching soap operas on a TV on the other side of her cage or sitting in her small outdoor enclosure.

… For years I felt haunted by Sarah. Was she to live out her days in isolation and misery? All I could do was tell her story and, as a humane educator, teach, so that we might make different societal choices in relationship to others, whether people or nonhuman animals. Fifteen years later, I learned that Sarah had found a final home at Chimp Haven, a chimpanzee sanctuary that houses chimps formerly used in medical research, entertainment and as pets. My eyes filled with tears of relief at this good news.”

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“

Image courtesy of Joao Maximo via Creative Commons.

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Helping Youth Become Solutionaries: The Rockville, Maryland Proposed Deer Hunt:

Posted on August 22, 2011 by zoeweil

For my blog post today, I wanted to share a letter I wrote to the mayor and council members of Rockville, Maryland, regarding their proposed deer hunt. While they are hearing from many people and experts, I specifically wanted to address the issue as a humane educator.
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To the mayor and council members of Rockville, Maryland:

I am the co-founder and president of the Institute for Humane Education, and it’s come to my attention that Rockville is considering a deer hunt. I wanted to write to express my concern, specifically about the effect on children of a deer hunt. As a humane educator – someone who teaches about the interconnected issues of human rights, environmental preservation, and animal protection in an effort to provide students with the knowledge, tools, and motivation to be solutionaries for a better world – I believe that a deer hunt would represent not only a poor solution to the problem Rockville faces, but also be detrimental to youth.

At a time when it’s so important to foster reverence and compassion among children and to increase their “nature literacy,” a deer hunt has the potential to quash that empathy and appreciation and dull their creative and problem-solving capacities. We are capable of finding safer, more humane, more peaceful methods for addressing local challenges with wildlife, and if Rockville simply resorts to a hunt, the message that healthy, humane solutions are possible is lost. And because it is lost among youth who most need to cultivate these critical thinking skills for a changing world, there is the likelihood that many young people – especially the brightest and most creative – will lose a tremendous opportunity for innovation.

Perhaps the students in Rockville schools could address the challenge of deer proliferation in Rockville, studying the issue and using it as a real-life example in their science, math, social studies, government, and language arts curricula. Inviting youth to first study and then come up with ideas for solving local wildlife challenges would be wonderful pedagogy and help Rockville set a precedent for engaging its young population in solutionary thinking. It would also prevent the dulling of young people’s compassion and love for other species, a quality we should be nurturing at a time when habitat is being destroyed, species are becoming extinct, and humanity is threatening the ecosystems upon which we all depend.

Zoe Weil

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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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