global ethical issues

Most Teens Don’t Think the World is Becoming a Better Place

Posted on May 9, 2013 by zoeweil

Image courtesy merfam/Flickr.

At the EARCOS conference, one of the other keynote speakers was Michael Furdyk, co-founder of TakingITGlobal, a fantastic organization we’ve written about and highlighted at IHE.

During his keynote, Michael shared an interesting (if not disturbing) statistic from the BBDO GenWorld 2006 study. When teens were asked if they agreed with the statement, “I think the world is becoming a better place,” only 14 percent (on average) responded in the affirmative. The breakdown by country looked like this:

China 34%
Taiwan 25%
India 26%
Brazil 16%
Russia 15%
United States 14%
Australia 11%
Spain 10%
Poland 10%
United Kingdom 9%
Germany 9%
Mexico 6%
France 2%

What’s ironic about these statistics is that, historically, things have been improving for centuries. As I’ve written about before and most recently shared here, by so many measures the world is indeed becoming “a better place.” There is greater freedom and democracy; girls are able to go to school, and women are able to live self-determined lives in greater and greater numbers; gays and lesbians are gaining rights; nonhuman animals are gaining greater protections; tolerance is on the rise and prejudice on the decline; life expectancy has increased almost everywhere, and death by violence has never been lower than in the last half-century.

True, the expanding human population and increased standard of living for a growing percentage of people has meant faster resource depletion and more global warming; increased rates of species extinction, and higher numbers of animals being brutalized and killed for expanding global appetites for meat. And the rise of the middle class has certainly not reached everyone—far from it—and slavery, trafficking, and sweatshop labor persist.

But even as the problems we face become potentially more grave, the opportunities for young people (the target of this BBDO survey) to solve them expands dramatically as organizations such as TakingITGlobal and IHE help pave the way for greater learning, networking, solutionary thinking, and problem-solving.

I am not surprised that only a small percentage of youth believes the world is getting better. After all, because they are growing up in the information age, they now know more about the grave problems we face, something previous generations did not. Fortunately, the fact that they believe the world isn’t getting better does not seem to stop them from committing to improving it.

I wish these youth had a greater sense of the arc of history, but I’m relieved that they are, by and large, staving off apathy and despair and joining forces through a globally connected world (which, ironically, is a perfect example of how the world is getting better) to solve the challenges we face.

~ 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 TEDxDirigo talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“
My TEDxConejo talk: “Solutionaries”
My TEDxYouth@CEHS “How to Be a Solutionary”

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Filed under: humane education | Tagged: activism, changemakers, citizenship, education, global ethical issues, hope, humane education, optimism, solutionaries, students, youth | 1 Comment »

Parking Your Luxury Car in Your Living Room—a Critical Thinking Opportunity

Posted on May 6, 2013 by zoeweil

When Singapore middle school principal Mike Johnston shared this video of a man living in a luxury apartment building in Singapore parking his high-end sports car in his living room, I thought it might be part of a sci-fi movie or a satiric piece of filmmaking.

It’s not.

But what a great humane education tool such a video is!

Imagine showing this film to a group of high school students and asking what they think of it. My guess is that a lot of them will think it’s very cool. Then imagine discussing it in the context of global issues, poverty, global warming, inequality. Imagine asking questions about rights and responsibilities. About freedom and inequity. Think of the lively discussion that would ensue.

If you do share this video in the context of education, remember to keep your own perspectives to yourself. The job of the educator is to share knowledge and instill the skills of creative and critical thinking, not to indoctrinate with personal ideologies. By using an activity like True Price, which examines the real costs of our consumer choices to people, animals and the earth, you enable your students to come to their own conclusions and devise their own actions to respond to the knowledge they gain.

~ Zoe

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Filed under: humane education | Tagged: consumerism, critical thinking, global ethical issues, global warming, humane education, inequity, luxury cars, materialism, poverty, videos, wealth | Leave a Comment »

Children Change the World in 5 Minutes a Day

Posted on April 22, 2013 by zoeweil

Another video Mike Johnston (see previous blog post here) shared with me was this four and a half minute film of children working together in school to create positive changes in just 5 minutes per day.

A cynic might watch this video and point out that these little acts don’t actually “change the world,” but what those cynics would miss is that these acts prepare these children to be solutionaries. By teaching, empowering, and engaging children in small actions that make a collective difference, these children learn that what they do matters. This is one of the most important lessons we can impart.

Imagine what these children will do when they enter the various professions to which they are drawn? I’m guessing that they’ll perceive themselves as agents of change and problem-solvers who address unsustainable and unjust systems within those professions. After all, that’s what they will have learned in school.

Once again, ask yourself this question: Who are these children’s teachers? What must they do differently in order to create a culture like this? How can we make this culture the norm?

~ Zoe

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Filed under: humane education | Tagged: change the world, changemakers, education reform, global ethical issues, humane education, solutionaries, students, teachers, youth activism | 1 Comment »

Who Was This Child’s Teacher?

Posted on April 18, 2013 by zoeweil

One of the videos Mike Johnston (see previous blog post here) shared with me at the EARCOS conference was this introduction to the children’s group Plant for the Planet.

As you watch this 4-minute video, I invite you to focus on these two underlying realities: 1) This boy represents a powerful movement of countless children; and 2) All these children have teachers.

Who are those teachers who’ve empowered and supported these countless children and their incredible work? What must these teachers do to support these children and how must they incorporate the skills and tools for activism and real-world service into their curricula? These children clearly aren’t spending every day focused on preparation for standardized tests, and my guess is that they’re learning more, gaining real world skills, and finding voice, passion, and goodness in the process of learning

This is what education should be.

Children like these will be the outcome.

~ Zoe

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Filed under: humane education | Tagged: activism, changemakers, citizenship, climate change, education reform, global ethical issues, humane education, reforestation, solutionaries, systemic change, teachers, teaching, trees, youth activism | 1 Comment »

There Are a Lot of Amazing Teachers in the World

Posted on April 15, 2013 by zoeweil

Image courtesy cybrarian77/Flickr.

A couple of weeks ago I had the privilege of keynoting and leading workshops at the EARCOS (East Asia Regional Council of Schools) international teachers’ conference in Shanghai, China. Eleven hundred teachers from across east Asia gathered together to learn, show, and grow, and I have never met a wiser, more compassionate, or more enthusiastic group of teachers in one place at one time.

I was so heartened and hopeful about the future, knowing that so many young people were learning from these amazing teachers. In my next few blog posts I’m going to share some of what I learned from them.

One of the highlights of the conference was meeting and attending workshops with Mike Johnston, the middle school principal at the United World College of South East Asia in Singapore. He has co-created an educational movement known as EduCare. EduCare helps lead schools toward better environmental, global issues, and service learning education. Mr. Johnston has moved schools forward by presenting in Europe, North America, South America, Africa, and Asia at regional conferences. He has led workshops for teachers and administrators around the world on sustainability, global curriculum K-12, and how service learning should not just be what you do, but who you are as a school. He has dedicated much of his time to not only ensuring students are properly prepared for the world’s most pressing issues, but that they have the skills and desire to take action.

In the first workshop that I attended, Mike shared a diagram of how school curricula is currently structured and provided a vision of how they should and could be structured. Instead of having a school’s mission statement and the global reality standing apart from the curricula (as is the case almost everywhere), he suggests that our global reality – all the issues that humane education covers – be the overarching influence on both the mission of a school and the curricula that’s provided to the students.

With just a slight shift in perspective, our schools could reframe and refocus so that curricula served the real needs of our students and the world, not the needs of meeting IB or AP or standardized test requirements that themselves have been separated from what he refers to as the global reality. Simple, right? Wise, right?

Whether you’re a teacher, administrator, parent, or concerned citizen, spread this idea. It’s just common sense, and it could do a world of good.

~ Zoe

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Filed under: humane education | Tagged: Asia, environmental education, global ethical issues, humane education, international education, service learning, solutionaries, Sustainability, teachers | 5 Comments »

It’s Not About You: Tips on Widening Your Perspective for a Better Life and World

Posted on April 11, 2013 by zoeweil

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 “It’s Not About You: Tips on Widening Your Perspective for a Better Life and World”:

It’s a given that we live in a globalized world.

We eat foods produced across the globe; we use electronics whose components come from dozens of places around the world; we can communicate instantaneously with anyone anywhere who has a computer with wifi or a cell phone.

With globalization has come awareness. We can quickly know about the conditions under which people live and work in other countries. We can find out about the plight of other species, or about pollution or deforestation. If the nightly news doesn’t report on these issues, we can discover them through our computers in minutes.

Knowing so much changes us. Or at least has the potential to change us. It enables us to be less tribal, provincial, and self-centered; to think of others outside our family, neighborhood, and even nation; to dwell as often on those we affect as on what affects us.

Read the complete essay.

~ Zoe

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Filed under: MOGO (Most Good) | Tagged: changemakers, Cultural Creatives, global ethical issues, globalization, mindfulness, Most Good Least Harm, perspective, social change, solutionaries | 1 Comment »

Which is More Likely to Get Past Airport Security? A Real Hamburger or a Fake One?

Posted on April 8, 2013 by zoeweil

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 “Which is More Likely to Get Past Airport Security? A Real Hamburger or a Fake One?”:

I travel often for my work. I also travel with many props for my humane education programs. Periodically, my props elicit some alarm among the airport screeners, especially my fake cheeseburger nestled with my clothes in my suitcase. On my last trip, this concern about my cheeseburger resulted in every inch of my bag being checked for drug and explosive residues and the unpacking of almost everything in my suitcase to find the suspicious cheeseburger. (It should be noted that there is nothing illegal about traveling with a cheeseburger even if it were real, although admittedly it would be weird to have it in one’s suitcase, unwrapped, next to clothing.)

I’ve had lots of time to ponder airport screening procedures, given that all told I’ve sacrificed literally weeks of my life in screening lines, taking off my shoes, my coat, my sweater and my scarf; emptying my pockets; taking out my laptop and my toiletries; enduring the pat down of my head (I wear a barrette), which invariably messes up my hair (I can be vain); and periodically getting full body searches (so fun).

And I’ve come to the conclusion that the TSA as an approach to safety is insane.

Read the complete essay.

~ Zoe

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Filed under: MOGO (Most Good) | Tagged: alcohol, critical thinking, dangers, food policy, global ethical issues, Most Good Least Harm, plant-based diet, public health, safety, security, smoking, subsidies, tsa standards, veganism | 1 Comment »

4 Ways to Overcome Despair

Posted on March 11, 2013 by zoeweil

Image courtesy of MervC/Flickr.

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 “4 Ways to Overcome Despair”:

“I don’t know many activists or changemakers who don’t sometimes feel sad. The more we expose ourselves to exploitation and cruelty toward people and animals; the more we learn about climate change and the rapid extinction of species; the more we see corruption in politics and greed in business, the greater the likelihood that despair will creep in.

Some turn their despair outward into rage, which can too often damage relationships, turn off potential allies, promote polarization, and thereby prevent solutions. Some find that despair leads to depression, undermining action, which can turn into a positive feedback loop: more despair leading to more depression leading to less action leading to more despair.

To face and overcome the periodic despair I feel, I have found four things that work well for me.”

Read the complete essay.

~ Zoe

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Filed under: MOGO (Most Good) | Tagged: activism, balance, changemakers, despair, global ethical issues, Joy, mindfulness, social change, solutionaries | Comments Off

Critical Thinking is Essential in Classrooms

Posted on March 7, 2013 by zoeweil

Image courtesy of Horia Varlan/Flickr.

No less a bastion of critical and scientific thinking – Scientific American – has published the strangest essay about teaching critical thinking to young people. According to Dennis Bartels, critical thinking is best taught outside the classroom.

Apparently, young people are not graduating from high school as very good critical thinkers, and, writes Bartels:

“Informal learning environments tolerate failure better than schools. Perhaps many teachers have too little time to allow students to form and pursue their own questions and too much ground to cover in the curriculum and for standardized tests…. For that, we have a robust informal learning system that eschews grades, takes all comers, and is available even on holidays and weekends.”

What comprises this robust learning system? “Museums and other institutions of informal learning” along with The Daily Show and The Maker Faire.

Museums and The Daily Show are great, but to depend upon them to teach our children critical thinking is not only folly; it is utterly irresponsible. Bartels is correct that critical thinking is paramount, but his solution is backwards. Instead of throwing up our hands and accepting the sorry state of schooling that fails to teach this most important skill to our kids, we ought to commit ourselves to the following:

1. Embrace a bigger purpose for schooling than passing standardized math and reading tests and “competing in the global economy.” Our students need to grow up to be solutionaries for a just, healthy and peaceful world, and they need critical and creative thinking skills to achieve this goal.

2. Identify what forms of teaching and learning produce critical and creative thinkers and jettison curricula and approaches that don’t achieve these goals.

3. Have schools do what Bartel suggests informal institutions do so well: eschew grades, take all comers, embrace questions, welcome failure, and while we’re at it, get rid of standardized tests.

~ 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 TEDxDirigo talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“
My TEDxYouth@BFS “Educating for Freedom”
My TEDxYouth@CEHS “How to Be a Solutionary”

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Filed under: humane education | Tagged: creativity, critical thinking, education, education reform, global ethical issues, humane education, learning, schooling, solutionaries, students, teaching | 1 Comment »

Take This One Small Step for Big Change in Education

Posted on February 28, 2013 by zoeweil

Image courtesy of cruiznbye/Flickr

As the president of the Institute for Humane Education I spend most of my days advancing the field of humane education, training people to be humane educators, and working to transform the very purpose of schooling so that we graduate students ready and able to embrace their roles as solutionaries for a just, compassionate, restorative, and peaceful world.

In my first decade of work as a humane educator I taught middle and high school students regularly; but these days, only periodically do I visit schools, and often only for single presentation. Every year, however, I have the pleasure of teaching a week-long humane education block at a local 7th and 8th grade. It is often one of the highlights of my year.

This year was no exception. The last week of January I spent five afternoons with a group of 25 students who affirmed my belief that change is possible, is happening, and that this generation will succeed in transforming unjust, unsustainable, and inhumane systems, if we simply provide them with the tools and knowledge they need for the tasks ahead.

Why do I believe this?

This group generated the most beautiful, nuanced, and powerful list of humanity’s best qualities – qualities they valued deeply.
They ALL wanted to make a difference and were eager to start by addressing their own school’s system of recycling, composting, and waste disposal to dramatically minimize the waste they produced.
They all made very specific, very achievable personal commitments on top of their commitment as a group.
They have a teacher ready and able to support their commitments, nurture their dreams, and guide their process of creating change, starting in their own school.

This last point is key.

Children need our support, guidance, mentorship, and knowledge. Many of us are formal teachers; most of us are not. Yet all of us are educators and all of us have a role to play if we hope to see a solutionary generation.

Let’s begin by each committing to do this one simple act:

Contact your school board and your legislators and ask that they embrace a big enough purpose for our children and their future: to educate a generation of solutionaries.

~ 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 TEDxDirigo talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“
My TEDxYouth@BFS “Educating for Freedom”
My TEDxYouth@CEHS “How to Be a Solutionary”

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

Filed under: humane education, education | Tagged: changemakers, education, education reform, global ethical issues, hope, humane education, legislators, school boards, social change, solutionaries, systemic change, teachers, youth | Comments Off

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Most Teens Don’t Think the World is Becoming a Better Place

Parking Your Luxury Car in Your Living Room—a Critical Thinking Opportunity

Children Change the World in 5 Minutes a Day

Who Was This Child’s Teacher?

There Are a Lot of Amazing Teachers in the World

Which is More Likely to Get Past Airport Security? A Real Hamburger or a Fake One?

Critical Thinking is Essential in Classrooms

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