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 “The Power of Humane Education”:

“It really doesn’t take much to ignite a passion for good among youth and adults alike. A week of [teaching humane education] classes turned an eighth grade that, on Monday, did not feel particularly moved to action or responsible for helping to create a more just and humane world, into a deeply caring group that eagerly embraced a project to make a difference by Friday. I witnessed this transformation as each day brought out even more of the compassion and kindness they had identified on day one as qualities that were most important to them.

“What is harder than sparking concern, care, and commitment is sustaining and nurturing this energy; providing the breadth and depth of accurate information about entrenched and pervasive challenges; and teaching them critical and creative thinking skills so that they remain the bedrock of each individual’s approach to healthy, positive, wise changemaking for all.

“The issues that humane education addresses are complex, covering human rights, animal protection and environmental preservation. The solutions to the interconnected – and sometimes conflicting – problems in the world aren’t easy to determine or implement. A week-long humane education course may seem life-changing, but for many that change may fade unless it is fostered and nourished.”

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“

Like my blog? Please share it with others, comment, and/or subscribe to the RSS feed. 

“Teachers are the agents of the future. Will our world be populated by people ready and able to meet that future as creative and critical thinkers; as wise, compassionate and knowledgeable citizens; as skilled and motivated solutionaries within their professions? The answer to this question lies with teachers. More than any other profession, teaching has the power to create a healthy, just, and peaceful world (or not). It has the ability to seed our society with informed, caring and engaged citizens (or not). It has the capacity to inspire lifelong learning and a passion for knowledge, understanding, and innovation (or not). Is there anything more important than this?”

Read the complete essay.

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“

Like my blog? Please share it with others, comment, and/or subscribe to our RSS feed.

This video is a reminder to me that I have the luxury to critique the educational system in my country and to advocate for changes in our approach to schooling largely because, despite the flaws in my own education, I was, in fact, among the most privileged to receive it.

This video is a reminder that when I complain about the food at a restaurant, I am so very fortunate to never lack food.

This video is a reminder that when I drink the tap water in a city and it tastes less good than my filtered well water, I am among the profoundly lucky who can simply turn on a faucet and have as much uncontaminated water as I could ever want.

This video is a reminder that it is not cultural imperialism to advocate for the education of girls and fight for an end to their exploitation no matter where they live in the world and no matter what the cultural norms or religious tenets that perpetuate their oppression.

This video is a reminder that I must constantly embrace the adage “to whom much is given, much is expected.”

This video is a reminder that it’s not enough to just spread this video; I must do something to make a difference.

For a just and humane 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“

Like my blog? Please share it with others, comment, and/or subscribe to the RSS feed. 

We always check in with the students mid-way, and here’s what participants are saying:

“I love, love, love the course!  I love everything about it  – the topics, the reading, the videos links, the on-line commons!”

“This course is so insightful and interesting – I’m really enjoying it!  I’m so excited to begin thinking about what I can implement in my classes next semester.”

“The course is exactly what I needed.”

“I am LOVING the course.”

“The course … is wonderful and I’m lapping up the course book. It is food for the soul.”

Imagine what would happen if more and more educators took this course and learned how to incorporate the pressing global issues we face into their curricula so that their students could gain the knowledge and skills necessary to be solutionaries for a humane, healthy, and just world for all.

We’ll be offering this course again in 2012 in February, July (4-week intensive) and October. Please spread the word.

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“

Like my blog? Please share it with others, comment, and/or subscribe to the RSS feed. 

“Three things happened this year in the world of education reform. The controversial documentary films Waiting for Superman and Race to Nowhere came out and became widely viewed and discussed, and Finland’s success at achieving the number one spot in educational outcomes (as measured by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development PISA report comparing the academic achievements of 15-year-olds in 57 countries) gained widespread attention. Finland’s educational model provides answers to the problems identified in the films, yet left out of the countless discussions, commentaries, and critiques is a deeper question about education, still unaddressed, and lying at the core of what will comprise meaningful reform: what are we educating our students for?”

Read the complete essay.

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“

Like my blog? Please share it with others, comment, and/or subscribe to the RSS feed.

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“

Like my blog? Please share it with others, comment, and/or subscribe to the RSS feed.  

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“

Like my blog? Please share it with others, comment, and/or subscribe to the RSS feed.

Against a student’s slate of classes that includes Hamlet’s potential suicide, the Holocaust, entropy, La Biographie de Robespierre, and the rules of trapezoids, humane education allows students to connect with the world that the archetypal graduation speakers say they “will inherit.”

President Barack Obama promised five million new green-collar jobs would rise out of this challenged economy, where survival seems to depend upon sustainable practices. The unlikely “Blue Green Alliance” between United Steelworkers and The Sierra Club underscores this. According to Executive Director Dave Foster, “It’s not a question of jobs or the environment. It’s both or neither.” When problems are conceived in absolute terms, critical thinking skills give way to bipartisan ruts. Humane education involves the sort of integrated thinking that promotes such “win-win” alliances and allow the most good and cause the least harm.

A lesson on urban transportation, for instance, considers not only the health of the local environment, but also that of the people who are commuting. It considers the quality of life for those who live near streets with high traffic volumes and whether urban planners could introduce healthier modes of transit. It takes the immediate problem of the danger a child might have in crossing the street and asks this student to re-vision — literally, drawn on paper — a viable, safer model. This one lesson, then, can enlighten the student about a wardrobe of green collar options: urban planning, environmental justice, alternative energies, public transportation advocacy, or architecture. No matter how beautiful The Great Gatsby is, it can’t do this.

Read the complete essay.

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“

Like our blog? Please share it with others, comment, and/or subscribe to the RSS feed.

For my blog post today, I’m sharing a recent post I wrote for Common Dreams, a progressive news site. Here’s an excerpt from “iSchool? Why There’s No Technological Fix to Ailing Education: iPads for Kindergartners is Not a Good Idea“:

“At a recent conference, I met a woman who was ecstatic about the new Auburn, Maine program which is providing all Kindergartners with iPads. At first, I thought she was joking. While the goal sounds positive – to better teach these children so they will more easily and readily learn their letters in a district where approximately 40% of third graders have not achieved literacy standards – after watching some news reports and reading some articles about the program, I found myself quite troubled. 

“… Instead of rushing to use technology with five-year-olds, we must first seek to understand why so many children are struggling to read at a standard proficiency by grade three. Is it a failure of technology, a failure of teaching and schools, a side effect of other variables (perhaps too many computer games and too much TV watching), a combination of these, or something else entirely?”

Read the complete essay.

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“

Like my blog? Please share it with others, comment, and/or subscribe to the RSS feed.

“Since it’s back-to-school season across the country, I wanted to celebrate a group that is often maligned: teachers. Like so many others, it was a teacher who changed the direction of my life, and to whom I’m forever indebted.

… I’m not saying that we shouldn’t seek to reform our education system. We should, and we must. Nor am I saying that all teachers are great teachers. They aren’t. But let’s be honest: No profession is full of peak performers. At least this one is infused with nobility.

And we as parents, and as a society at large, must also acknowledge our shortcomings and the enormous hurdles that teachers must often clear to reach a child. Teachers may be the biggest in-school factor, but there are many out-of-school factors that weigh heavily on performance, like growing child poverty, hunger, homelessness, home and neighborhood instability, adult role-modeling and parental pressure and expectations.”

Read the complete essay.

For all you teachers out there beginning a new school year, thank 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“

Like my blog? Please share it with others, comment, and/or subscribe to the RSS feed.