A Letter to High School Seniors: Don’t Accept College Rejections

Posted on May 2, 2013 by zoeweil
denied and approved stamps

Image courtesy of Joelk75/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 “A Letter to High School Seniors: Don’t Accept College Rejections”:

Dear High School Seniors,

Over the past few weeks, many of you have received letters from the colleges to which you applied in the fall and winter.

Some of you are delighted with the outcome, having gotten into your top choice(s). Congratulations. This post is not for you.

Some of you are content, having gotten into a couple of schools that were high on your list. Wonderful. This post is not for you.

Some of you – all too many – are despairing because you received multiple rejections; got on wait lists that are unlikely to turn into acceptances; didn’t receive the financial aid you required; and realized that you actually have no interest in going to the affordable safety school that accepted you. This post is for you.

Many of you, who worked so hard and expected to get into an elite college with the kind of endowment that would ensure you could affordably attend with good financial aid, wonder why you even bothered to take all those AP courses; to study so diligently in classes that sometimes bored you to tears; to prep for the SATs; and to follow all the rules laid out for you during four years of high school.

Here’s my message to you: Don’t surrender your potential. Don’t accept the rejections. It’s time to forge your own path.

Read the complete essay.

~ 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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Does Our Short Attention Span Prevent Us From Deep Thinking?

Posted on April 1, 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 “Does Our Short Attention Span Prevent Us From Deep Thinking?”:

“In his recent essay in Harvard Business Review, Umair Haque critiques “TED thinking,” which he writes, serves “as a shorthand for the way we’ve come to think about ideas and how we share them, whether it’s through an 18-minute talk, an 800-word blog post, or the latest business ‘best-seller’…. ‘TED thinking’ is just a symptom: and the underlying syndrome is our broken relationship with Great Ideas.” 

 While Haque brings up some important and good points in his essay, the construct he presents creates a false dichotomy between “TED thinking” and deep thinking; between solutions-oriented thinking and theorizing; between application and analysis; between idea generation and Great Ideas. These either/ors are both unnecessary and unhelpful.”

Read the complete essay.

~ 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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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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If This is a NERD, Let There Be More of Them

Posted on November 15, 2012 by zoeweil

I had the pleasure of meeting Nikhil Goyal at the TEDxYouth@BFS conference in September. Nikhil is in high school. He’s also the author of the new book, One Size Does Not Fit All: A Student’s Assessment of School, and a frequent TEDx speaker. His talk at TEDxYouth@BFS, “Why Kids Hate School,” was powerful and compelling, and I highly recommend it:

Recently, The Washington Post’s The Fix tweeted: “This high school kid just wrote a book on education? NERD.” Having met Nikhil, here’s my new definition of NERD: Normal yet Exceptional and Reasonable Dynamo. May the NERD revolution begin!

~ 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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Seth Godin: What is School For?

Posted on November 12, 2012 by zoeweil

As readers of my blog know, in my first TEDx talk, “The World Becomes What You Teach,” I ask the question, “What is schooling for?” At TEDxYouth@Brooklyn Free School where I recently gave another TEDx talk, “Educating for Freedom,” Seth Godin, a brilliant thinker, writer, and changemaker, gave a talk, “Stop Stealing Dreams” in which he asks and answers the question, “What is school for?” Check it out:

What do you think school is for? What should it be for?

~ 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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Learning Through “Edutainment”

Posted on September 24, 2012 by zoeweil
Image courtesy Mickey Thurman via
Creative Commons.

Often, when we think of education, we think only of classrooms, where “formal” learning takes place. But there are many ways to educate and engage people, and classrooms are only one venue. While they are a perfect place to bring relevant global issues to students who are prepared – and often eager – to learn about them, the ways in which we learn are myriad. We learn in our homes, from news sources, within our religious and cultural traditions, from friends and colleagues, through books, from careful observation, at workshops, perusing the Internet, etc.

Most of us relish learning, not only as children but throughout our lives. Learning something new is often deeply satisfying and pleasurable. Learning may take some effort, but we enjoy it. Sometimes, though, we feel that learning takes work, and when we’re done “learning” for a period of time, we may want to take a break for “entertainment.”

Yet entertainment can be one of the very best venues for education. When I first saw the theatrical productions The Vagina Monologues and Crossing the Boulevard, I was struck by how brilliantly Eve Ensler and Warren Lehrer and Judith Sloan managed to entertain, while teaching their audiences about some of the great injustices and cruelties in the world. One watches those shows and learns much. I’m less certain whether these great pieces of theater inspire action and galvanize their audiences to become changemakers; but in recent years edutainment-into-action has become a commonplace endeavor, too.

Every week a new documentary comes along, created by activists determined to spur change. That Waiting for Superman and Race to Nowhere – two films about the generally “unsexy” topic of K-12 education – and Supersize Me, Forks Over Knives, Vegucated, and Food, Inc. – about our dietary habits and their effects – have become such big hits reminds us that we have entered the world of learning and doing. Waiting for Superman (a problematic film which I’ve written about here), left viewers texting at the end in order to stay involved. And how many people changed their dietary habits because of one of the slate of documentaries about diet and food production?

Comedy is also growing as a popular form of edutainment. Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert have built their careers on the marriage of serious news and comedy. And how many of us were moved to think more deeply about social injustice and destructive societal norms by George Carlin, one of America’s greatest comedians?

Which is why I’ve personally decided to try my hand at comedic edutainment. I’ve created a 1-woman show — My Ongoing Problems with Kindness: Confessions of MOGO Girl — which I’m performing around Canada and the U.S., including at Times Square in New York City as part of the United Solo theatre festival.

My hope is that while people are laughing they will also be learning and considering how they can live more deeply aligned with their values and make a difference in a world that needs them.

~ 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“

Get tickets now for the October 13 NYC debut of my 1-woman show — My Ongoing Problems with Kindness: Confessions of MOGO Girl – at United Solo, the world’s largest solo theatre festival.

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

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Teaching: the Most Noble Profession

Posted on September 6, 2012 by zoeweil
Image courtesy of nightthree via Creative Commons.

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 “Teaching: the Most Noble Profession”:

Another school year begins.

Last week, I was speaking to a veteran teacher of 35 years; an award-winning teacher. She’d recently retired. I asked her if she missed teaching. She didn’t miss a beat. “Not at all. Not since No Child Left Behind.” For her, teaching had become untenable. Her special education students, often immigrant children without English competency, were taking standardized tests that she described as nothing less than cruel.

Perhaps if these standardized tests were helping our children, she wouldn’t be so jaded and discouraged; but the irony is that there is little evidence that regular national standardized tests improve educational outcomes and much evidence that other educational approaches are far more successful.

It is a scary thing to imagine that we are driving out the very best teachers like her. It is deeply worrisome that veteran teachers are discouraging their own children from becoming professional teachers. It is truly terrifying that the Texas Republican Platform states:

We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) (mastery learning) which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority.

One can only imagine the sorts of teachers who will remain if Texas gets its way. Or the future in store for all of us when the children who’ve been taught to memorize, regurgitate and obey – but not think – grow up and take upon themselves the roles of professionals and citizens.

~ 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“

Get tickets now for the October 13 NYC debut of my 1-woman show — My Ongoing Problems with Kindness: Confessions of MOGO Girl – at United Solo, the world’s largest solo theatre festival.

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

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Curiosity and Care: The Core Necessity for Learning

Posted on April 25, 2012 by zoeweil
Image copyright Edwin Barkdoll.

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 “Curiosity and Care: The Core Necessity for Learning“:

“Yesterday afternoon my husband and I went out to Otter Bog, where we stumbled upon a vernal pool filled with salamander and Wood Frog egg masses. It was marvelous. We had decided to go to Otter Bog instead of attending a vernal pool conservation talk that evening. We didn’t think we had time for both, and attending a presentation didn’t seem as exciting as heading outdoors with our dogs on a beautiful spring afternoon. But once we saw the vernal pool and realized how much we didn’t know about it we decided to head back in time to attend the talk.

…We humans love to learn. We are endlessly curious and eager gatherers of new knowledge. But we do need motivation to learn new things, and that motivation comes from our enlivening experiences and our ability to care. Most people have no reason to get excited or care about vernal pools and their ecology or conservation, because vernal pools mean nothing to them. Even if they stumbled upon a vernal pool in the woods, they would be as likely to find it mucky and gross as they would to find it amazing and compelling. There’s a positive feedback loop that occurs with curiosity. It is fed by care and some knowledge, which then inspires the desire to gain more knowledge and which makes us care even more.”

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“

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Teaching: The Most Noble Profession

Posted on December 30, 2011 by zoeweil
For my final blog post of 2011, I thought I’d repost my most widely-read essay of the year: “Teaching: The Most Noble Profession,” that was published on Common Dreams.org, a progressive news site. Here’s a short excerpt:

“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.

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Take the Plunge

Posted on October 12, 2011 by zoeweil
Unless it is very hot outside and the water very warm, I always find it tough entering a pond, lake, or ocean to swim. While most people I know just dive right in, I can take 15 minutes of slowly inching my way deeper before I get up the nerve to submerge. I go through all sorts of mental gymnastics, asking why am I doing this, do I really want to, and trying to convince myself that maybe up to my hips is far enough. Then I mildly berate myself for my cowardice, remind myself how good I’ll feel afterwards, and give myself a talking to about experiencing life in all its aspects. Eventually I take the plunge.

And so it was last weekend at Otter Bog. I had spent a couple of hours scraping out the accumulated poop and pee of who knows how many mice who’d made their home in the oven and cupboards in our cabin over numerous winters. To say it was a disgusting job is an understatement. I felt so gross. The pond, sparkling in the sun and reflecting the few puffy clouds overhead, beckoned. I’d get to swim by the big beaver lodge and alongside the heath. I’d clean off the mouse poop that had surely bedecked me despite the latex gloves I wore. My dog, Elsie, was already swimming in circles, just waiting for me to join her. But it still took forever for me to slowly, painstakingly, enter the cold September water.

Which is a metaphor for something, isn’t it? Change is hard, which is how I see going from a comfortable body temperature on a seventy-five degree, breezy day to entering a sixty-degree pond. And yet, stretching ourselves beyond our comfort zone, exploring and experiencing more of what life has to offer, is compelling. Life is dull without new experiences and opportunities.

And those opportunities are myriad. They reside in every choice we make: to eat something healthy and humane instead of the same old stuff offered in our mainstream culture; to volunteer where we are needed and feel the joy of giving instead of spending those two hours on Facebook; to learn something new that might change our life and choices for the better, instead of watching a reality show or American Idol or another sitcom; to donate money to a cause in which we believe, instead of buying a new pair of shoes or earrings; to mindfully put legs on a dream or vision instead of slipping into the rut of our daily norms.

Take the plunge. You’ll feel better afterwards.

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.

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