For a just 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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As a humane educator, my job now includes offering other people choices, although the choices revolve around more pressing issues than tie fashions. Offering positive choices is the 4th element of quality humane education, and it’s a critical component to creating a humane, sustainable and peaceful world. Humane education explores the greatest challenges of our time (e.g., global warming, resource depletion, human rights, institutionalized animal cruelty, habitat destruction, overpopulation, economic stability, etc.), and it offers positive choice-making as an integral component of changemaking. Like my father, I try to offer people a couple of choices that are reasonable and good, but sometimes no such choices are available, and my students must head to the “tie rack” of choices to find something better.

When there’s nothing quite good enough on the tie rack – no pattern or fabric that fits – system-changing and creativity are paramount. I never faced an insoluble tie choice with my father, but there were days I lingered for a long time, uncertain about the best choice. The best choice might have entailed designing a new tie.

We need to design new systems to solve many of our entrenched problems. The key is to recognize when a choice is good enough and when to engage fully in the process of designing a MOGO (most good) choice because none are suitable. In my book, Most Good, Least Harm, I offer 7 keys to operationalizing the MOGO principle. Key 5 is “Model your Message and Work for Change.” In other words, wear the best tie you can while designing the best tie possible. We must all engage in system-changing — whether through our work, our volunteerism, or our charitable donations — in order to create the systems that make all our choices MOGO ones. And, at the same time, to the greatest extent possible we must model our message relying on what “ties” currently exist.

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 my blog post today, I’m sharing a recent post I wrote for Common Dreams, a progressive news site. Here’s an excerpt from “Politicians’ Failures of Generosity”:

“It’s intriguing to me that wealthy politicians, even knowing that the public will scrutinize their charitable contributions, are so strangely stingy. At a time when so many are hurting, it would be so simple to be generous, even for the most self-serving of reasons. Given the rhetoric around “class warfare” and “envy” on the one hand and “sharing the burden” and “fairness” on the other, it’s almost bizarre that these high net worth politicians give so little proportional to their income.

When I was in college, I learned that observant Jews are taught to give 10% of their income to charity—not to their synagogue but directly to those in need. It doesn’t matter if you are a working class Jew or a wealthy Jew, the 10% applies to you, assuming you are not destitute. There is much commentary about what constitutes legitimate charity in Jewish law, primarily focused on ensuring that gifts are well thought out to maximize their benefits. A hallmark is anonymous giving and giving in such a way that the recipients become self-sufficient and prosperous.”

Read the complete essay.

For a generous 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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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 Depth of Animal Emotions”:

“On January 14, we adopted a new dog. He was found tied to a tree a week earlier and brought to the veterinary clinic where my husband works. There he waited for his family to retrieve him. No one came, which meant, at week’s end, he needed a new home. About a year old, dirty, thin and matted, Henry Hershel (as we’re calling him) joined our crew of two dogs and a cat. He wasted no time in endearing himself to us and seemed very happy to join our family.

A week after we adopted him, we went out for a couple of hours, leaving all the dogs at home, and my husband set up his computer to videotape our living room in our absence. …Nothing would indicate that Henry Hershel had been at all upset by our absence. But then we watched the video. Henry Hershel cried plaintively when we were gone, settling down for a while only to howl after 30 minutes, 45 minutes, 60 minutes, and so on.

…It’s amazing to me that there are people who believe that animals don’t feel. Henry Hershel shows every sign of feeling as deeply, if not more deeply, than humans. Whether what he was feeling during our absence was sorrow, fear, loneliness, yearning, anxiety, longing, worry, loss, or some combination of these or other emotions, I cannot be sure, but he is certainly feeling something. His utter delight upon our return offers a glimpse into his other, more positive feelings. Like us, his spectrum of emotions is wide.”

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 “A Prison Without Bars Reminds Us We Can Change Entrenched Systems”:

“I recently learned about the Bastoy prison in Norway, where 115 prisoners, some of whom are murderers and rapists, live without bars or barbed wire. Set on a one square mile island, the inmates live relatively free lives. While they are not permitted to leave the island and must appear for a head count four times a day, little could stop them if they chose to walk across the frozen ice in the winter, or swim in the summer, to the mainland just two miles away. But in the 20 years this “alternative” prison has existed, they haven’t had anyone leave. Prisoners must apply to Bastoy to live a different sort of prison life, one in which they work (and are paid), are part of a community, grow food, compost, build, cook, do their laundry and live a relatively normal village life. In the evenings, only five guards remain on the island….

“As someone who promotes solutions to complex challenges and solutionary education, I find Norway’s approach intriguing and compelling. If the goal is to provide the most effective, practical, efficient and fiscally wise approach to tackle the thorny problem of criminals and imprisonment, Norway seems to have come up with a positive solution that is cost-effective, positive, successful and humane.“

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.

It’s often a hard one to remember when we’re late and the driver ahead is poking along, or when we’re treated rudely or worse, or when someone seems truly mean-spirited or cruel. Yet kindness always matters, and often our lack of kindness and empathy stems simply from our own impatience and self-involvement. Watch this beautiful video to be reminded of the power and joy that comes when we awaken to others’ pain and choose to be of service.

For a kind 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.  

Happy New Year! 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 Beyond the Starfish: Creating Systemic, Lasting Change in the New Year:

“In his book, But Will the Planet Notice?, economist Gernot Wagner shares a parable humanitarians have heard many times. It’s the oft-told starfish story in which a pragmatic man tells a boy rescuing beached starfish by throwing them back into the sea that he can’t possibly make a difference given the thousands of starfish on the beach. As the boy throws a starfish back into the ocean, he responds to the pragmatist by saying, ‘I made a difference for that one.’

This story is a reminder to all of us that in the face of great odds and much injustice, suffering and cruelty, doing something – anything – to help individuals does indeed make a difference. And yet, in the face of such daunting and pervasive problems as alarming rates of species extinction, global warming, a growing human population and all that this forebodes (even greater disparities between rich and poor, more people without access to clean water and enough food, depletion of resources, more pollution, etc.), and truly unimaginable cruelty and the killing of one trillion animals every year for food, it’s time for a better parable.”

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.