Take a Risk and Become Who You Were Meant to Be

Posted on March 18, 2013 by zoeweil
Image courtesy of epSos. de 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  “Take a Risk and Become Who You Were Meant to Be”:

“I grew up in Manhattan during the most crime-ridden years in New York City. Despite the dangers, my parents – like the parents of all my friends – allowed us quite a bit of freedom. At six I regularly roller skated and rode my bike around the block by myself. By eight I took public transportation to school alone, walking to the bus stop, waiting for the bus, and crossing two big avenues by foot in the process. At 12 I took the often dangerous, graffiti-covered, pee-smelling subways solo.

I no longer live in New York City, but plenty of friends with whom I grew up still do, and they do not let their children do these things, even though they all did them.

… And then there were car rides with no seat belts, no car seats for babies and toddlers, kids in the back of station wagons. My son would probably be dead were it not for the car seat that protected him when I spun out on black ice and nosedived over a 12-foot embankment, crashing vertically, when he was three years old.

So all things considered our protectiveness is a good thing.

But we risk something else if we extend our protectiveness too far.”

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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To Bear Reality, We Must Cultivate Joy, Connection, Compassion

Posted on December 27, 2012 by zoeweil

I’m traveling a lot this month, so please enjoy this repost from 11/24/08.

T.S. Eliot once wrote, “Humankind cannot bear much reality.” In today’s world, threatened as it is by global climate change, human overpopulation, massive extinctions, fresh water depletion, toxic waste, and replete with escalating worldwide slavery, brutal institutionalized animal cruelty, human starvation and many more problems, it’s no wonder we can’t bear much reality.

In our graduate programs at the Institute for Humane Education, we know students struggle with the content of their courses (on education, human rights, environmental preservation, animal protection, and cultural issues such as consumerism, social psychology, media, and globalization). Although every course has books and articles with practical and wise solutions to our problems, each also exposes our students to the challenging realities of our time. After all, we cannot solve our entrenched problems and transform unhealthy systems if we don’t know about and understand them.

Many of our students struggle with the dark content of some of the books and films in the program because, indeed, it is hard to bear that much reality. But there is another reality that our program explores: that of our human capacity to experience wonder, joy, connection, compassion, and understanding. Our students are required to spend time in a natural setting, participate in activities that reawaken their reverence, meet and connect with people from other cultures, listening to their stories and building relationships. Each student also does a practicum, not only to put their knowledge and training into practice, but also to experience the joy that comes in doing the work of humane education.

Yes, we cannot bear much painful reality, and so we must cultivate the joyful reality that is our inheritance so that we can hold the joy and pain together and rely upon our experience of profound connection and empathy to face and transform those systems which harm. If we expect to change the world through doomsday stories, we will find that many turn away, unable to bear that much reality. But if we inspire people to fall in love with this gorgeous planet, revel in their senses and ability to feel awe, turn their apathy into compassion, and hear the stories of the heroes among us, then we will discover that our reality is huge: full of light, dark, and everything in between, and we can bear it all in our hearts and minds in order to create a better world.

~ 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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It’s Time for a Radical Shift

Posted on December 17, 2012 by zoeweil

I’m traveling a lot this month, so please enjoy this repost from 11/19/08.

Fritjof Capra, physicist, systems thinker, innovative writer, professor, and environmental educator, said this at a Bioneers conference a couple years ago:

“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 information, 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

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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Avis Ex Machina or “I Can’t Believe That’s a Bird!”

Posted on February 29, 2012 by zoeweil
Image courtesy of corvidaceous
via Creative Commons.

Many years ago, my husband and I began noticing a strange recurrence in the woods. Periodically, we’d be walking along and hear the start of an engine, putt-putt-putt, followed by the revving up as the engine catches, followed by… silence. How odd. It was as if our distant neighbors (we live in rural Maine where dwellings are far apart) started up their chainsaws only to stop before actually using them.

What was especially weird was that this kept happening, on walks to the ocean by our house, and in the wilderness far from any people at all, and it always followed the exact same pattern: a slow start, the roar of the engine, and nothing. Why were there machines starting and stopping all over the woods? And why could I find no one else who’d ever noticed this?

Last weekend, my husband was listening to his bird song app on his iPhone, and he clicked on the Ruffed Grouse. Lo and behold, there was the machine noise, called “drumming,” that the male makes by rapidly flapping his wings while puffing out his chest. At long last, our mystery was solved.

After this discovery, I found myself thinking that on the one hand we’ve been pretty observant visitors to the woods. We’ve noticed a sound no one else we know has ever noticed. But on the other hand, I’m struck by the fact that in all these years, it took an iPhone app to identify the source of that sound, and that what we have been convinced had to be mechanical was actually just a bird, the size of a small chicken, flapping his wings. Reason and sleuthing should have led us to the Ruffed Grouse years ago, but we were easily led astray by our senses, which insisted that this sound was a human-made machine, however illogical this obviously was.

How easily we come up with faulty explanations for the unknown, believing in false premises, jumping to conclusions, becoming superstitious. But if we’re willing to persevere and allow our curiosity, coupled with our reason, to steer us toward truth, we may yet get there.

(Here is a link to hear and see the drumming of the male Ruffed Grouse yourself . You will need good speakers as the frequency is so low that most computers won’t do the sound justice.)

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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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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Baghdad Cafe: Making the Impossible Real

Posted on May 9, 2011 by zoeweil

My husband and I recently watched the indie film, Baghdad Café. I complained during the beginning that the film seemed boring and that we should watch the other Netflix film about the Galapagos that had arrived. Fortunately, I was too tired to actually get up and bring the Galapagos DVD over to the computer, and so we stuck with Baghdad Café. I’m so glad. It’s an unlikely and quirky film. The characters are not really believable, and nor is the premise, but by the end I didn’t care. I loved the message: Anything is possible. We are capable of so much more than we usually dare to imagine, and if we just dared, who knows what could happen.

Unlike many films these days in which the end is dark and uncertain (or in which there is really no end at all), this film is deeply satisfying. It offers no pat ending, but rather the possibility of more happiness and achievement to come. Jasmin and Brenda, the protagonists in Baghdad Café outstrip our expectations. What if we were to outstrip our own expectations of ourselves. What might we achieve?

And so this film leaves me asking myself and you these questions:

  • What do you want to create?
  • What do you want to be part of?
  • What do you want most for our world and your life?

As Capt. Jean-Luc Picard from the starship Enterprise would say, “Make it so.”

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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Phil Zimbardo’s Secret Power of Time and What It Means for Our Kids

Posted on January 17, 2011 by zoeweil

Take a look at this RSA Animate video of Phil Zimbardo’s The Secret Power of Time.

As I watched this, I wondered what it would take for all of us to have a healthy balance of past, present, and future orientation so that we would all be able to learn from and appreciate our pasts, live fully in our presents, and be cognizant of and choose wisely based upon the goals we have for the future. Personally, I do not think that it is all that wise for most people to live predominantly in one of these categories and neglect the others. While it’s commonplace today for busy, future-oriented people (like me I’d add) to strive to live “in the present,” I think the real goal for people like me ought to be to live more in the present, and to find that elusive balance that enables us to be fully engaged right now while able and willing to reflect upon the past and eager to live in such a way to create a positive and healthy future for ourselves and others.

When Phil Zimbardo discusses the ways in which our children are now digitally rewired and fundamentally different than their parents in relation to time, and points out the ways in which traditional schooling is a disaster for so many kids – boys in particular – one wonders what the solution might be to raise a generation that is balanced in regards to time in today’s world. There are many ideas that lead to this balance for our children: time spent in nature where wonder may be cultivated; unstructured play time; and limited screen time to allow for a leisurely present that leads to joy and creativity in the early years of life that is later balanced with lessons in history (past oriented) and exploration of current conflicts and problems (in the present) that elicit creative ideas for system-changes and solutions (for a healthy future).

I believe it’s time to abandon any judgments about which orientation is “best,” as the early part of Phil Zimbardo’s talk reveals is happening in Italy, and to do away with the idea that our goal should be to “live in the present” or “wisely plan for the future” or “focus on learning from the past.” We need all of these aspects of ourselves together to lead lives that are joyful and wise, and we need to raise a generation that has the capacity to find the healthiest balance, too.

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of The Power and Promise of Humane Education and Most Good, Least Harm: A Simple Principle for a Better World and Meaningful Life

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Seeing the World From Another Side: Aikido and MOGO

Posted on September 13, 2010 by zoeweil

Last night I was teaching our Aikido class because our sensei was away, and one of the students was talking about what he perceived as some others’ faulty views. Then he reworded what he’d said, reframing his point by saying that these others may simply have different views from his own.

The first technique we practiced had us moving in such a way that when someone tried to punch us we wound up facing the same direction. Safe from harm, we stood right next to our “opponent,” gazing toward the same wall. We could see the world from his perspective. I pointed out that this technique actually served as a metaphor for this student’s comment. Can we see the world from another’s perspective – one that is different, perhaps sometimes faulty?

If instead of responding to an attack with a block and counter-attack, we deflect, move out of the way, and face the same direction by blending, we have a multitude of opportunities for response. We can figuratively and literally see the world from another’s eyes. We are safe but close, neither fleeing from the conflict nor resorting to violence. Our eyes are open to a new angle. This requires flexibility, responsiveness, and the melding of a variety of techniques to be able to adjust depending upon the situation.

Whether faulty or different, we all have views we hold dear and we all find ourselves critical of other views. But if we can react by blending and facing the same direction as others, instead of immediately casting blame, we have the opportunity to find peaceful resolutions to conflicts and develop greater understanding.

It won’t always be the case that conflicts end with acceptance and understanding, but the Aikidoist still attempts to stop the conflict without causing harm. This “most good, least harm” (MOGO) approach in a martial art serves as a reminder that we must continually seek to understand others’ views in order to find the most peaceful resolution to conflicts.

Zoe Weil
Author of Most Good, Least Harm

Image courtesy of Darij & Anna via Creative Commons.

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A, B, C and Not Yet: Embracing Our Identities as Successful Changemakers

Posted on August 25, 2010 by zoeweil

I’ve been reading the book Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard by Chip and Dan Heath. The book identifies key factors that spur positive change. In one section, the authors discuss creating a new identity and a growth mindset. They tell the story of Molly Howard, a special education teacher who became the principal of Jefferson County High School. This particular high school was low achieving for many years, with only 15% of graduates going on to college. Molly Howard changed this when she became principal, and she began by altering the identity of the students. Students, teachers and administrators had begun to think of only some kids as potential successes, able to attend college and achieve more than they currently were achieving. Molly Howard challenged this assumption and changed the grading system in her school. Instead of A, B, C, D and F as potential grades, she limited grades to three: A, B, or C. If you hadn’t achieved at least a C your work was described as “Not Yet.” In this way, no child would ever be perceived or perceive him or herself as a failure or a D student. All learned to identify themselves as able to succeed in learning. In 2008, she was named Principal of the Year by the National Association of Secondary School Principals.

Not only do our students need to identify themselves and be identified as able to succeed in academics, we also need to identify them and ourselves in other visionary and important ways. It isn’t enough for students to succeed on standardized tests measuring their acquisition of certain scholastic skills; we all need to create bigger identities for ourselves as agents of positive change. Many have come to believe that we really can’t change pervasive problems in the world. Last summer I spent a couple of nights with a group of strangers on an island off Newfoundland. Among them was an Israeli couple. The subject of Israeli-Palestinian peace came up, and not only did the Israeli couple believe that there would never be peace, many of the Americans in the group agreed with them.

If we believe that peace is impossible, that we cannot end slavery or institutionalized animal cruelty, reverse climate change or restore habitat, slow human population growth or find non-polluting energy and mineral sources, then we will never achieve these important goals. But if we change our identities, realize that we have the ingenuity and capacity to solve problems, we can do so. We have the ability, and many have the will. But we need the belief, the identity, and the commitment to raise a generation who with this same believe and identity. And then we must provide this generation with the tools and knowledge to achieve this great task.

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

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A Dog’s Purpose

Posted on August 16, 2010 by zoeweil

I recently finished A Dog’s Purpose, a novel by W. Bruce Cameron. I loved this book. Told in the first person by a dog, I don’t think I’ve ever read anything that rang so true about the inner lives and thoughts of our canine companions. Reading this novel has me looking at and relating to my own dogs differently, and I thank a novelist for the gift of this new insight and appreciation.

I love fiction, but I admit that sometimes I feel like I’m indulging myself by spending time with a novel instead of with non-fiction that will “teach” me more and enable me to do more and better work in the world. (This is ironic because I have an Master’s in English Literature!) The truth is that there are those novels that so transform us that we become better people because of them.

Check out this book!

Zoe Weil
Author of Most Good, Least Harm

(Image is of Zoe and one of her rescued dogs, Elsie.)


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