It’s Time for a Radical Shift

Posted on October 17, 2011 by zoeweil

A few years ago I went to Bioneers and had the pleasure of hearing Fritjof Capra speak. Capra, a physicist, systems thinker, innovative writer, professor, and environmental educator, said this:

“Solutions require a radical shift in our perceptions, thinking, and values.”

I agree. So how do we create this shift? Embedded as we are in dysfunctional and outdated systems that have influenced our perceptions, thinking, and, to an astonishing degree, our values, how do we step outside these systems far enough to assess them clearly and transform them wisely? Some thoughts:

1) Our perceptions, thinking, and values are malleable.

If, for example, people immigrate from one culture to another, they begin to live on a hyphen, carrying their perceptions, thinking and values from their original culture, while slowly absorbing and accepting new perceptions, thinking, and values from their new culture. Their children continue this hyphenated existence, generally moving further toward the new culture. Their children’s children are likely to be fully enculturated in the new society. What does this mean? It means that we are capable of holding disparate views and perceptions simultaneously, and that our thinking and values can shift, with new information and new experiences. This bodes well for the radical shifts we must make in our perceptions, thinking, and values.

2) Most of us share core values.

Many, if not most, of us subscribe to the Golden Rule to do unto others as we would have done unto us (or the reverse, to not do to others what would be anathema to us). Many, if not most, of us know that the accumulation of things (beyond what is necessary and a bit more for enjoyment) does not bring us happiness, whereas joyful and helpful relationships with family, friends, and neighbors do. And, many of us know that a restored environment secures our health and the health of generations to come. In other words, we value kindness and peaceful, sustainable human and ecological communities.

Yet we have created and perpetuated systems that defy these values in favor of other values and interests, pursuing profits at the expense of the biosphere and creating and using products and systems that cause terrible harm to other people, other species, and the environment. We fail at living according to our deepest values, not because we don’t value kindness and peaceful, healthy communities, but because our perceptions and thinking are molded by faulty systems and because other competing interests take root. Instead of recognizing this conflict and trying to resolve it practically and wisely, we fail to acknowledge it, choosing sides and clinging to false options. We create either/or choices (Republican v. Democrat, Socialist v. Capitalist, Christian v. Muslim, Urban v. Small Town, Elitist v. Joe Sixpack), as if these options are at all viable for the radical shift required. They are not. We need to find systems that support our shared core values of creating a peaceful, healthy, sustainable world for all, and shift our perceptions and thinking toward the attainment of this goal. This may not be easy, but it is absolutely possible.

3) We need humane education at all levels of society.

I have said for years that if we can raise a generation with the knowledge, tools, and motivation to solve our greatest challenges, infusing all curricula with humane education, we will transform our world. But, we do not have the luxury of waiting a generation to reverse the trajectory of global warming or to slow population growth, two of the most frightening challenges we face. This is why humane education must be offered everywhere – in schools, of course, but also for and through the media, health care providers, architects and engineers, entrepreneurs, executives, legislators, farmers, and more. Humane education – that is, education about the interconnected issues of our time that promotes inquiry, introspection and integrity, as well as far-reaching systems transformation – allows us to step outside our current perceptions and thinking in order to deeply examine our values and make long-term, wise decisions representing the radical shift we need.

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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Lightening Up and Letting Go: Learning From Fighting Dogs

Posted on May 20, 2011 by zoeweil

Yesterday afternoon, two of our dogs, Ruby and Elsie, got into a fight. They’ve been fighting periodically over the past 5 months, and each fight has gotten worse. I had thought that their last fight, well over a month ago, was the final battle, and that they’d worked things out. Basically, Elsie, now an adolescent, has begun to irritate Ruby, soon to turn 8. When we first adopted Elsie, who was around 6 months old, she was like a fountain of youth for Ruby. The two played and played, and we were delighted that Ruby had a best friend, sister, and playmate.

But this year, Elsie’s been pestering Ruby, sidling up next to her, on her tail, challenging her status as queen bee in our household, and Ruby has been voicing her displeasure by growling. Elsie doesn’t take the hint, and Ruby has attacked her half a dozen times. The first couple of times Elsie barely fought back, but yesterday, she fought back hard. Usually, I let them work it out and no one is hurt; but this time, they wouldn’t stop. I tried everything I could think of: yelling at them, tossing a sheet over them, throwing their stainless steel dog bowls, and finally getting a broom. The broom worked. I got them apart. We were all shaken.

And when this happened, my husband and I were soon to hit the road to drive to Massachusetts to watch our son’s breakdancing performance at school, and I didn’t want to leave our housesitter to handle any fallout from the fight. So I called the motel where we’d be staying and asked about bringing Elsie. They said yes.

Elsie traveled for six hours, four hours longer than the longest road trip she’d ever been on with us, arriving at a strange motel room to spend the night. She seemed a bit anxious, but she cozied up in the bed and fell asleep. In the morning we went to the school to watch the performance and stopped to take Elsie for a brief walk in the rain. A carpet of pink flower petals lay on the ground and Elsie lay among them, a beautiful sight. A balm after the storm that had precipitated her joining us.

A couple of hours later we were back on the road home. Elsie was a good traveler, confused though she must have been. When she and Ruby saw each other upon our return they were wary. Elsie slinked into the house, obviously worried. But then they ran outside – where they are always best friends – before coming back in and slipping into their uncertain patterns in the house. Ruby growling quietly; Elsie refusing to back off.

I hope there won’t be any more big fights. I hope that Elsie will stop challenging Ruby’s status in our household, or if she simply must be the alpha, that Ruby will let go as she ages. I hope that Elsie will learn not to be such a pest around Ruby, and that Ruby will just lighten up.

As I write these words, I find them familiar. I see the ways I, too, can be a pest in my family (like Elsie), and the ways I, too, can be inflexible around my likes and dislikes (like Ruby). I see the ways in which as much as we love one another, we, too, can fight (although we do so with words, not teeth). I see the ways in which we each seek control in different forms and styles and the ways in which lightening up would be just the solution to many a conflict.

Maybe if I work on my own behavior, Ruby and Elsie will miraculously solve their behavioral challenges, too.

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of Most Good, Least Harm, Above All, Be Kind: Raising a Humane Child in Challenging Times, and The Power and Promise of Humane Education
My TEDx talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“

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What It Will Take to Change the World

Posted on May 18, 2011 by zoeweil

Many years ago, when I was stuck in traffic, a cyclist zoomed by me. I’d just added a new bumper sticker to my car that read, “Earth’s best friend is vegetarian.” I thought it was rather witty, with its graphic of the Earth in the shape of an apple, and I personally considered myself far ahead of the proverbial curve, because I was promoting my personal animal protection goal to a wider audience of environmentalists. I even felt a wee bit smug about just how well I could make connections between issues and teach others about what I knew and they didn’t.

As the cyclist sped by, he yelled into my open window, “Earth’s best friend is a bike rider!” He wasn’t very friendly when he shared this. And he disappeared so quickly, without my having the opportunity to educate him about soil erosion, water pollution, depleted aquifers, greenhouse gases, fuel consumption – all caused in large part by animal agribusiness. How little he knew, and how much I had to teach him! Alas, he was gone before I could offer enlightenment (or defend my need for a car).

That bumper sticker is long gone. I realized it didn’t quite work. The sticker was smug, even self-righteous. It promoted a single act – vegetarianism – as best for the planet. Not that vegetarianism, veganism, or eating locally grown foods aren’t extremely helpful choices, but telling others what is the best choice is long gone from my activist/educator repertoire.

What the world – human and nonhuman animals and the Earth itself – urgently needs are activists and citizens who balance committed, confident energy with humility, and passionate, creative effort with wisdom. Our world is desperate for those who are willing to uncover every stone in an endeavor to understand the connections between all forms of oppression and destruction, who are eager to see problems from multiple angles, who want to work together listening and learning from each other, who steadfastly refuse to accept or promote simplistic answers to complex problems, and who diligently strive for visionary solutions that help everyone.

Slowly but surely, such people are surfacing. They are like the baseball players emerging out of Ray Kinsella’s corn field in the movie, Field of Dreams, coming because they are compelled to leave something behind that doesn’t work for a better vision that will, forming a new team neither they nor anyone else set out to create, one that doesn’t confine them to playing a specific position in a predetermined game organized by others who call the shots.

Some of these emerging players are young adults disillusioned by the polemics of organizations, institutions, and the media that focus on either/or solutions to multifaceted issues. Some are teachers scared for the next generation and despondent when misguided laws like the U.S. No Child Left Behind Act fail so dismally to live up to their own visionary titles. Some are CEOs of multinationals or politicians who realize what the future holds if they do not step up to the plate as true leaders. Some come when they suddenly see and are horrified that we’re losing our democracies to corporatocracies. Others appear when they discover they can’t afford, or even obtain, local, organic foods to feed to their families.

When they arrive some, like architect William McDonough and chemist Michael Braungart, authors of the book, Cradle to Cradle, construct buildings and products that aren’t simply less bad, better at fuel efficiency, or more eco-friendly, but which are actually ecologically regenerative and restorative. Some, like Wangari Maathai, plant trees that blossom not only into restored and sustainable ecosystems, but also into democracy and empowered women. Some start community gardens to feed themselves and their neighbors, rich and poor. Some become stealth adbusters, using marketing tools to expose underlying systems of manipulation that have become the norm on Madison Avenue.

These people are engineers and scientists, nurses and electricians, parents and shop owners, artists and accountants, priests and rabbis. They are independent thinkers who see interdependency as part and parcel of the creation of a better world. They may work on separate pieces of the complicated puzzle, but they never forget how their piece is linked to the whole.

It is these people and the hundreds of connections they make, the ways in which they learn from and teach one another, and the revolution they are launching that is the real hope for the world. They are flocking to festivals, conferences, and workshops that link human rights to environmental preservation to animal protection to religion to business to democracy to the media to politics. They are bringing these interconnected issues to rotary clubs and boardrooms, villages and parliaments. It is these people and the ideas they generate that are producing brilliant, cutting edge solutions grounded in root causes and linked to broad, positive effects.

Perhaps you are part of this growing revolution. Perhaps you’ll bring your voice to the hugely diverse, but harmonic chorus that is echoing everywhere. Perhaps you’ll bring your passions and skills to bear on the enormous, but glorious work that is ahead of us. I hope so. As for me, I wish I could go back in time and smile at the cyclist who road by me and say, “Yes, please share with me what you know! Together let’s protect this beautiful Earth and all its inhabitants. I promise I’ll stop being so smug.” If you’re reading this, long ago cyclist, email me and let’s do what it takes to change the world before it’s too late.

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of Most Good, Least Harm, Above All, Be Kind: Raising a Humane Child in Challenging Times, and The Power and Promise of Humane Education
My TEDx talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“

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Instead of Rejoicing at Osama bin Laden’s Death, Let’s Vanquish the Real Enemy

Posted on May 6, 2011 by zoeweil

For my blog post today, I’m sharing a recent blog post I wrote for Care2.com, an online community for people passionate about creating a better world. Here’s an excerpt:

Vanquishing the enemy means looking below the surface evil to the ways in which rage, hatred, sociopathy and brainwashing occur, and attempting to find root causes and root solutions.

While it may feel satisfying, and deeply so for those who lost loved ones on September 11, Osama bin Laden’s death represents no solution to hatred and bigotry; minds easily influenced; actions determined more by situations and systems than by careful thought, reflection and analysis. These are the real and powerful roots of evil.

There is a way to confront our biggest enemy, and it lies with children….That way is through schooling that teaches critical and creative thinking and problem-solving and that fosters reverence, respect and a sense of responsibility.

It is, in fact, the only way to cultivate healthy roots so that each of us has the capacity to resist the effects of a destructive environment — whether that environment is political, cultural, economic or ecological — and then transform that environment into systems that are more just, sustainable and humane.

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 L. Marie via Creative Commons.

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I Married a Vivisector: Challenging Our Perspectives

Posted on May 4, 2011 by zoeweil

At a recent MOGO (most good) talk at the University of California at Berkeley, I spoke about the most good, least harm principle and how we can put this principle into practice in our lives, consciously and conscientiously. While I can’t remember the context for sharing with the audience the fact that I married a vivisector (someone who conducts experiments on animals), I do remember one member of the audience asking, “How could you?” She did not emphasize the word “could” (as in, “How could you?”), which would have been a bit rude, but rather the word “how” because it so perplexed her that I could date someone (let alone marry him) whose values were so opposed to her own, and presumably to mine, since I was a budding animal rights advocate when I met him.

I shared with the audience that when I met my husband 26 years ago, while I called myself a vegetarian, I actually still ate sea animals. Since he killed about a dozen amphibians a year in his research on vision, and I ate way more sea animals simply to please my tastebuds, I could hardly condemn his work. Ironically, while I still enjoyed going to zoos, because I loved seeing the animals, he told me he didn’t want to go to a place where wild animals were so confined and miserable. Suddenly the seeming disparity between my husband and me because less clear cut. Suddenly the black and white thinking to which so many of us gravitate (myself included at times) became awfully gray. I went on to become vegan and my husband went on to become a veterinarian, giving up his grant and his work as a scientist. People can change.

When we wonder how someone could marry someone seemingly so different in some fundamental way, perhaps it’s time to challenge our assumptions and stretch our thinking. Love is a great tool for seeing the world from another’s perspective, but we can bring this tool to all our interactions and relationships. In Aikido, a martial art which I practice, we are always attempting to blend with our aggressor and see the world from their perspective. It’s a great tool for life, too, enabling each of us to grow in understanding, awareness, and the capacity to evolve in new ways.

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 coba via Creative Commons.

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Look Beyond Either/Or to the Both-And

Posted on April 18, 2011 by zoeweil

I’m swamped with our new graduate programs right now, so here’s a repost from 7/20/09 that I hope you’ll enjoy.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the ways in which we humans seem to gravitate towards “either/or” choices. Either we protect Northern Spotted Owls or people’s logging jobs. Either we invade Iraq or not. Either we pull the troops out or stay. There are more. Either we trust our minds or hearts. Either we are Christian or Muslim. Either we are Republican or Democrat.

Yes, there are people who want to protect owls and jobs, think beyond either/ors and work creatively to come up with the wisest choices in Iraq, trust both their minds and hearts, see the connections between all religions, and consider themselves Independents. But it seems to me such people are the minority.

Among activists, the either/ors are sometimes cast starkly: either someone (or some company or industry) is good or evil. The CEO of Altria (formerly Philip Morris), of Exxon-Mobil, of Monsanto –- they must be evil, while the CEO of Working Assets/CREDO must be good.

It’s just not this simple. But complexity is, well, complex. Commitment to seeing both-ands instead of either/ors demands more from us. It may at first even appear wishy-washy, as if you’ve lost your passion and your commitment if you don’t immediately “take sides.” It shouldn’t. Instead, a commitment to both-and is a commitment to problem-solving at the deepest level. A realization that people have the capacity for dangerous, unwise, unhealthy choices, as well as compassionate, kind, and brilliant choices means that we can try to influence the former, rather than call people names and divide the population into us and thems.

There will be many times when taking sides is exactly what you need to do, but let’s not let side-taking become a knee-jerk reaction to everything that is presented to us in either/or terms. You’ll find either/ors everywhere. Listen for them. And then see if you can determine a more nuanced both-and…and a solution that works for all.

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of Most Good, Least Harm and Above All, Be Kind: Raising a Humane Child in Challenging Times
My TEDx talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“

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A Powerful, Crucial Vision for the Future of Schooling: Teaching 2030

Posted on April 8, 2011 by zoeweil

Teaching 2030: What We Must Do for Our Students and Our Public Schools… Now and in the Future is perhaps the most cogent, reasonable, clear, and yet visionary book about educational reform in the 21st Century. Written through a collaboration of twelve teachers/teacher-leaders and changemakers, Teaching 2030 steers clear of rhetoric, either/ors, political side-taking, and focuses on what we need to create for a future in which all our children are well-educated for the changing world. It is a brilliant book, written with clarity and practicality, and it would not be difficult to implement every one of their suggestions. This book has the capacity to truly transform schooling, and I’m excited to include it as required reading for the students in our M.Ed. and M.A. programs in humane education.

It might appear that such a book is just for teachers or educational reformers and policy-makers, but it is one of the most important books that each of us could read this year simply as citizens. Schooling serves as the bedrock for our future, and each of us has an enormous stake in its success and relevancy.

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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No Independent Thought or Discussion Allowed in AP Class!

Posted on March 23, 2011 by zoeweil

A friend’s daughter is taking Advanced Placement (AP) World History. During class she and another student got into an engaged discussion about a topic they were studying that both had passionate feelings about and which both were prepared to discuss respectfully and knowledgeably. One had made a statement with which the other had disagreed and so voiced her opinion. The other was eager to take her on, his eyes lighting up with enthusiasm. But rather than allow the discussion to unfold and engage the rest of the class, the teacher responded by saying, “Whoa you two, okay. That’s enough of that.”

AP classes are meant to be the equivalent of college courses. Has it really come to this that there are teachers, especially at this supposed high level of learning, who will not permit their students to voice their opinions, engage in discussion, or even be permitted to think and speak in class about the very topics they are studying?

The dangers we face in the world stem from a combination of our lack of critical and creative thinking, along with our propensity for myopia and our deadening of our own compassion. The systems in place that perpetuate injustice, destruction, and cruelty cannot be shifted or changed if we are unable to assess them; yet schools have been relentlessly moving away from critical and creative thinking as they have focused more and more on covering material on which students will be tested.

It’s time to devise solid and meaningful assessments for critical and creative thinking, reasoning, and innovation. That is what our world needs from our graduates. And if we elevate these skills and develop good ways to chart our progress in conveying them, perhaps our children will finally be invited, encouraged, and made to think.

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 Scott Ogle via Creative Commons.

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Mark Bittman: “Some Animals Are More Equal Than Others”

Posted on March 21, 2011 by zoeweil

I so appreciated Mark Bittman’s March 15 opinion piece in the New York Times, “Some Animals Are More Equal Than Others.” Our hypocrisy surrounding the treatment of animals is stunning, and Bittman’s essay makes the point powerfully as he recounts the ASPCA’s arrest of a teenage girl for killing her sister’s hamster (a felony) while the routine killing (following nothing short of torture) of billions of other animals in our society is not only legal but ubiquitous.

Bittman’s essay describes the sort of unreflective and hypocritical (as opposed to critical) thinking that prevents us from creating a society that is just and humane and healthy, and I would love to see this essay read in high school classrooms, followed by class projects that uncover various inconsistencies within their own schools and our society that require investigation and, hopefully, rectification.

Imagine what would happen if our students became these sorts of critical and creative thinkers.

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of Most Good, Least Harm
My TEDx talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“

Image courtesy of meddygarnet via Creative Commons.

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Dexter Chapin’s Master Teachers

Posted on March 16, 2011 by zoeweil

I recently read Dexter Chapin’s excellent book, Master Teachers: Making a Difference on the Edge of Chaos and underlined more passages than I had in any book in years. For my blog today, I wanted to share some of them.

“Nothing the federal government, the state government, or the school district does will improve education and schooling nearly as much as recognizing the impact and magic created by a master teacher connecting with students.”

“What really sets teachers apart are two traits. The first is that teachers are idealists. To a person, they believe the world can be a better place and they, all by themselves, can make a difference, and, perhaps, a big difference.”

“Everybody has moments of success, but teachers see it every time the kids’ eyes light up when they see and understand something never seen and never understood before.”

“By the time he retires, every good teacher has hundreds of heirs. Perhaps this is the best reason to teach. Teachers dream a better world and have a capacity to achieve that dream not for just one generation but certainly two and possibly three generations.”

“The good teacher needs student questions the way a thirsty person needs water. And no matter where the question leads, the master teacher can bring it back to where the students have to go.”

“Teachers are political animals. The decisions they make about what knowledge to include in their class is an intensely political act. This fact cannot be avoided because not choosing is an equally political act. College professors have the partial protection of tenure, but most K-12 teachers do not. Safety for many teachers lies in mediocrity, where the definition of mediocrity is what most people do most of the time. However, master teachers do have a safety net or protection that is not available to mediocre teachers, the trust of their students. Master teachers have compassion; the ability to meet students where they are. Over time, compassion breeds trust. Over time, trust allows the teacher to shake the students’ knowledge base to its foundations, while the students make a conscious effort to protect the teacher.”

“Integrity and empathy are the beginnings of a foundation for lifelong learning. Therefore the goal of the master teacher must be to increase both in students.”

“The flow of information from the teacher to the student dwarfs the flow from the student to the teacher. The measure of success is regurgitation. Can the student give back what was given? Yes? No? Success? Failure?…. It is a trivial system indeed that returns an input as output with no change. How trivial are we going to make education and our students?”

“Optimistic teachers are confident that the world can be changed. However, they do not believe that only they have the power to change the world. They trust their students. Therefore, their role is not that of a blacksmith hammering a piece into shape, but rather a gardener encouraging growth…. A second trait of optimistic teachers is the belief that they have never peaked as a teacher. What happened in their class yesterday can be improved on. It has never been as good as it might be. They are constantly looking for other ways to do things, to broaden the experience, to enrich the information sources, and to tailor the structure and function for the class to meet student needs and interests.”

“While we rush, rather thoughtlessly, to copy the rote memorization techniques that enable kids in Asia and elsewhere to score so well on standardized tests, the education ministries in Japan, China, and India are frantically dispatching minions into the field, exhorting teachers to ‘teach in a more American fashion,’ in order to stop squelching the creativity, imagination, and argumentative confidence that we encourage (or used to encourage) so well.”

“Part of the art of teaching is to be able to read the students as they come through the door… To make our lives easier, I built a eudemony meter for the classroom. Eudemony is a measure of general well-being. The meter consisted of an open pine cabinet with a layer of cork in the back with a seven-inch circle inscribed. At the base of the cabinet were five containers of push pins; green, blue, clear, yellow, and red. The cabinet was situated so I could not see the color pin the student put into the cork on entering the class. Before I started class, I would look at the pattern in the target and knew immediately what I was dealing with. Some days I could go for broke and some days I couldn’t. Some days, I just abandoned the lesson plan, and did something else entirely because it was really green or really red…. In those instances where I had a single red at the start of class for two or three days running, the students always made sure I knew who was having a bad time. They never did it outright; it was always in code, but they made sure I knew. The student in question was always grateful.”

“A necessary basis for students feeling safe is the presence of rules that are held inviolate. The rule that leaps to mind is the golden rule, ‘Do unto others…’ The trouble is that this rule is meaningless to precisely those students who have the greatest tendency to create social havoc. They are bullies who have ‘already been done to’ and see the world as being a place where you do first before it can be done to you. A better rule might be, ‘You can say, or do, anything provided it is true, kind, and useful (it gets us down the road to where we want to be).’”

“Competition between students has a bad aroma with some teachers…. However, done appropriately so that one person, group, or team does not metaphorically score ten runs in the first inning, it can generate very positive outcomes…. the competitive situation should have the following characteristics:
• It must be limited to a specific situation, assignment, or time, and not generalized across the context.
• The ‘rules’ must be the same for all players but the outcomes may be different.
• There must be multiple, limited competitions between variable groups.
• The competitive situation should always be novel and unpredictable.
• And finally, the competition must always remain a game and be fun.”

“… there are two questions to be asked. The first question is, if we gave any one of the high stakes tests such as the SAT, ACT, or NCLB mandated state tests to a thousand congressmen, CEOs, artists, or military officers, would a significant portion be embarrassed by their performance? Which raises the second question, what does a successful person need to know, and how and where can each person learn it? The answers to these last questions should drive a national organization of teachers. Forget the rest of it. If we can get this in front of the nation, everything else will follow.”

“Please do not even try to be a teacher if you do not have all of the attributes of character: integrity tempered by empathy, intelligence tempered by awe, risk-taking tempered by common sense, independence tempered by the desire to serve, and most important, self-confidence tempered by self-knowledge. Even with all the attributes, please do not start or continue on the journey just because it is possible. Start or continue on the journey because it is what you have to do, almost a calling.”

“In a completely rational society, the best of us would be teachers and the rest of us would have to settle for something less because passing civilization along from one generation to the next ought to be the highest honor and highest responsibility anyone could have.”

With hope for schools filled with master teachers like Dexter Chapin,

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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