Conformity ≠ Uniqueness

Posted on December 13, 2012 by zoeweil
Image courtesy Asha ten Broeke via
Creative Commons.

I’m a big fan of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, which I watch online because I don’t have a TV. One of the benefits of watching TV shows online is few commercials, but there are some. Recently, I’ve seen a series of ads for Dr. Pepper. The ads feature crowds of (mostly young) people wearing identical red shirts, most of which say “I’m one of a kind.”

As I’ve watched these commercials I’ve found myself wondering whether the irony is intended, cynical, or comic. Did the ad company that created the commercials realize the doublespeak they were producing, a creepy sort of mind control they seem to portray? Or did they actually believe that because Dr. Pepper is a different flavor of soda than most (“one of a kind” as their current slogan goes), that conformity in pursuit of uniqueness makes sense and would make sense to viewers?

Do viewers catch the irony? I sure hope so.

If not, there’s always humane education and its media literacy activities to the rescue. Let’s make sure that our kids know how to parse an ad, recognize doublespeak, and break free from others’ efforts to manipulate 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“
My TEDxYouth@BFS “Educating for Freedom”

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Building Reverence into Our Daily Actions

Posted on June 4, 2012 by zoeweil

It’s almost time for our Student Residency this summer, and we’re busy preparing for another group of passionate, insightful humane educators.

I’ve been thinking about last summer, and the reverence-building activity led by IHE certificate graduate, Caroline Overbeek. The activity fits nicely into a science curriculum or as a launch point for a writing assignment in language arts, but it’s also a wonderful and inspiring activity for anyone who wants to build more reverence into their daily lives.

Caroline asked us to lie down in a circle, with our heads in the center but not touching anyone else, and to imagine that we were lying on the grass (this would be even better if done on the grass, but even in a classroom this works well). She led us through a guided meditation that invited us to imagine the atoms in our bodies and the atoms in the grass – similar of course, even though in different composition. As we relaxed more and more and realized our atomic connection to the grass and beyond, she invited us to associate this feeling of connection with the Earth with an everyday action. Telling us to imagine ourselves doing this action and to connect it to this feeling, she gave us a minute to keep replaying the image in our imaginations before ending the 15 minute activity.

That night, when I lifted my pillow on my bed to prop it against the headboard to read, I thought of Caroline and the feeling of connection with the Earth. This is because that was the everyday activity I had chosen. I’d long since forgotten about Caroline’s activity (it was one of many in a very packed day, with many other events before I went to bed), but there was that connection planted that morning. Every night since I’ve thought of Caroline and felt a peace descend as I climb into bed to read before sleep.

Divorced as so many of us and our children are from nature, this activity offers a possibility for connection that is profoundly important. We will care for and protect what we love, understand and revere, and something as simple as this science-oriented, reverence-building activity can set the stage for daily reminders of our connection with the Earth and our interdependence.

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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Connecting Reverence-Building With Every Day Actions

Posted on July 15, 2011 by zoeweil

During our Educating for a Better World Summer Institute for teachers, Caroline Overbeek (a soon-to-be graduate of our humane education certificate program), led a reverence-building activity with us that fits nicely into a science curriculum or as a launch point for a writing assignment in language arts (and which is a wonderful and inspiring activity for anyone).

Caroline asked us to lie down in a circle, with our heads in the center but not touching anyone else, and to imagine that we were lying on the grass (this would be even better if done on the grass, but even in a classroom this works well). She led us through a guided meditation that invited us to imagine the atoms in our bodies and the atoms in the grass – similar of course, even though in different composition. As we relaxed more and more and realized our atomic connection to the grass and beyond, she invited us to associate this feeling of connection with the Earth with an everyday action. Telling us to imagine ourselves doing this action and to connect it to this feeling, she gave us a minute to keep replaying the image in our imaginations before ending the 15 minute activity.

That night, when I lifted my pillow on my bed to prop it against the headboard to read, I thought of Caroline and the feeling of connection with the Earth. This is because that was the everyday activity I had chosen. I’d long since forgotten about Caroline’s activity (it was one of many in a very packed day, with many other events before I went to bed), but there was that connection planted that morning. Every night since I’ve thought of Caroline and felt a peace descend as I climb into bed to read before sleep.

Divorced as so many of us and our children are from nature, this activity offers a possibility for connection that is profoundly important. We will care for and protect what we love, understand and revere, and something as simple as this science-oriented, reverence-building activity can set the stage for daily reminders of our connection with the Earth and our interdependence.

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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Affluence and Affluenza

Posted on July 13, 2011 by zoeweil

The film and book, Affluenza, explores the mostly modern condition of relentless consumerism, debt, yearning for more, dissatisfaction and sluggishness, and a treadmill life that leaves people feeling empty and stressed simultaneously. In our recent Summer Institute for teachers, high school English teacher, Mark McGonagle, came up with an activity that explored affluenza through a quiz for students whose score determined whether or not they “suffered” from this condition.

A question arose. Is affluence the same as affluenza? The answer is clearly “no,” yet there is sometimes a subtle (and often a not so subtle) judgment by social justice and environmental activists against those who are affluent. It’s true enough that most who are affluent are bigger consumers than those who aren’t. They have larger houses filled with more stuff, more vehicles (and motorboats and sometimes private jets), travel for leisure more often, and so on, contributing to greater environmental destruction than those who do not have these luxuries. They certainly appear to suffer from affluenza. Yet, it’s critical not to lump affluence with affluenza. Having money can be a phenomenal tool for change, and I know people with money who are profoundly generous, live simply, and create substantial systemic change through their donations to social change organizations. This could and perhaps should be the model for affluence.

Most people want to be more affluent, and most want money to buy more stuff. What if we were to transform the image of affluence? Imagine if money were perceived less as a vehicle for luxury and more as a vehicle for the power to create positive change. If we identified those affluent people who have eschewed personal luxury in favor of a deep and abiding commitment to use their wealth for systemic good, we would have models for “compassionate consumerism” that went beyond fair trade, eco-friendly, cruelty-free products and that embraced thrift and simplicity coupled with generosity and philanthropy for a better 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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Campers at the Institute for Humane Education

Posted on August 13, 2010 by zoeweil

Last week, we hosted 23 people, children and adults from local Camp Featherfoot for a day of reverence-building activities. Our summer intern, Emily Peake, introduced the group to such activities as Wonder Walk, Find Your Tree, Smell Teas, Seton Watching, and Gnome House Building and Ecology Discussion.

Watching the children share their love of these experiences and respond to these activities that awakened their senses with such joy and pleasure was a treat for us at IHE. We spend most of our working hours training others to be humane educators and advancing the field of humane education, so days when we get to share our beautiful space with children and watch their hearts and minds open to caring for the environment is a gift and a reminder of the power of this form of education.

Humane education is good for kids, good for society, good for animals, and good for the Earth. We hope you’ll introduce people to these wonderful activities in your community too!

Zoe Weil
Author of Above All, Be Kind: Raising a Humane Child in Challenging Times, Most Good, Least Harm, and The Power and Promise of Humane Education

Images courtesy of Daniel DeLuca.


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Building Empathy and Critical Thinking: A Lesson About Animals

Posted on July 21, 2010 by zoeweil

At our Summer Institute for teachers at the Institute for Humane Education, participant Betsy Messenger, who is the humane educator at the Catskill Animal Sanctuary in New York, created a lesson on animal issues that was so effective and powerful, I wanted to share it with you. She gathered our group outside and “borrowed” my dogs, whose only task was to run outside and do whatever they wanted to do. Our job was to simply observe them and record on paper the kinds of activities and emotions they were demonstrating in one column, and in another column write down whether we had ever experienced similar emotions. While the dogs demonstrated some acts that people don’t normally do, like tearing grass with their mouths, the emotions they displayed – curiosity, playfulness, attention-seeking, joy, abandon, and so on – were ones familiar to every person.

After observing the dogs, Betsy had us get into groups of four and stand shoulder-to-shoulder, facing one another. Then she drew a circle with chalk just outside of our feet. As we stood awkwardly in our groups, enduring the close contact that is not the norm for our species unless we are intimately connected with a person, Betsy asked us to imagine how we would feel if we were to have certain things done to us — portions of our bodies mutilated, for example — and had us consider how long some might be required to remain like this (a year). After a few minutes she gave us the reprieve to move out of our circles, and she shared with us the reality for chickens and turkeys raised for food and eggs in modern agricultural facilities: intense confinement, debeaking and toe removal, ill health, and so on. Finally, she shared the story of one turkey who was rescued from such a factory farm and showed us photographs of this particular turkey, a positive note on which to end the 20-minute activity.

What I loved about Betsy’s activity was the sequencing of observing another species and relating their behaviors to our own, the kinesthetic experience of pretending to be poultry in confinement, the information about modern confinement agriculture, and the happy ending for at least one turkey. We went on quite a journey in 20 minutes, and Betsy managed to include several elements of humane education in such a short time, including: providing us with accurate information; fostering our curiosity and critical thinking; instilling our reverence, respect, and sense of responsibility; and raising our awareness of choices we can make. So powerful. It reminds me of how much learning can happen in such a brief time when someone carefully crafts a varied and meaningful activity.

(Betsy will be writing this activity up to include in the free downloadable activities in the resources section at our website.)

Zoe Weil
Author of The Power and Promise of Humane Education

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Observing the Natural World & Creating Poetry

Posted on July 14, 2010 by zoeweil

During our Summer Institute, June 28-July 2, we introduce the participants to a form of nature observation called “Seton watching.” Each of us finds a place at the Institute for Humane Education’s meadow, woods, or by the pond to sit and observe a small window of nature for 25 minutes. It’s always remarkable how much we each see when we slow down, cast our gaze narrowly but intently, and just watch.

One of the participants, reading teacher Carolyn Ericksen-Buss, was moved by this simple act of observation to create an activity for her presentation in which we went outdoors in pairs, read aloud a Gary Snyder nature poem for inspiration, and then chose a small window to observe before creating a joint 12-line poem. We composed the poem by having each member of the pair write a line, going back and forth until the poem was complete. It’s amazing what little gems of poems were created in just 10 minutes!

What I loved about this activity was that it effortlessly brought humane education to the study and act of writing poetry. By first reading a poem, then choosing a small window in nature, we both learned from a master poet and summoned our skill at observation and evoked our reverence for the natural world along with our imagination and creativity. There was no time to critique in the 20-minute time frame, and so we had the rare opportunity to revel in our creative impulses and joy in experiencing the natural world without an inner, or outer, editor.

This is a gift any language arts teachers can give their students.

Zoe Weil
Author of The Power and Promise of Humane Education and Most Good, Least Harm

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What Superhero Would You Be?

Posted on July 12, 2010 by zoeweil

During our Summer Institute for teachers, June 28-July 2, participants offered the group short presentations on any humane education topic. Andy Beardsley, a high school English teacher, explored superheroes with us and then invited us to consider what superhero we would be, what powers we would have, and how our superhero story would originate were we to craft such an alter ego for ourselves.

Andy had already thought of the superhero I would be – MOGO Girl – so I was off and running. I immediately thought that my super power would be the ability to make people see the true impacts of their choices and feel compassion as they witnessed the suffering, cruelty and destruction that lay behind even the smallest decisions about what they ate or wore or purchased or chose for entertainment. For example, as someone was about to purchase a conventional chocolate bar, they would witness the slave children toiling in cocoa plantations that provided the cocoa beans, or as they were about to eat an omelet they would witness the chickens crammed together in battery cages, unable to stretch a wing and the male chicks from egg-laying hatcheries ground up alive for feed and the spent hens on the slaughterhouse lines, many of them still alive as they’re dropped into the scalding tanks to loosen their feathers. The ability to see would alter people’s choices and compel humane and sustainable changes in our culture. It would be the culmination of my work as a humane educator rolled into an effective super power that motivates us all to change, based on a combination of our knowledge and our care.

Now I just have to design my costume!

What I love about this activity is the opportunity it provides to kids to imagine themselves as heroes, righting wrongs, making a difference, having the power to do great things with their lives. Instead of simply loving other superheroes, Andy had us using our creativity to imagine ourselves as superheroes. What a gift this is! To be invited to see ourselves in this light is to launch a new vision for our abilities and our commitments and to recognize the hero within who has the power – even through imagination – to be a positive force for good.

What superhero would you be? What would your powers be? What effect does imagining this have on you? I welcome your thoughts.

Zoe Weil
Author of Most Good, Least Harm, The Power and Promise of Humane Education and Above All, Be Kind

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