Let Us Learn From the Life of Vaclav Havel

Posted on December 19, 2011 by zoeweil
Image copyright European Parliament/Pietro Naj-Oleari
via Creative Commons.

This morning the news reports are focused on the death of Kim Jong-Il. I wish I were hearing more about Vaclav Havel, who also died this past weekend. Both led countries, but while one was an oppressive dictator, the other was a truly great statesman, humanitarian, writer, and truly courageous leader. One practiced totalitarianism; the other spoke out against it and served five prison sentences in defiance of Soviet oppression before becoming Czechoslovakia’s president. That the life and death of a dictator is eclipsing the life and death of one of the 20th century’s greatest people in terms of air time is unfortunate. So today, I’d like to honor and express my gratitude to Vaclav Havel.

When I feel despairing about the state of the world and fear that nothing I do will amount to much in the face of the grave problems we face, the cruelties we perpetuate, I think of Havel, who said this:

“I feel a responsibility to work toward the things I consider good and right. I don’t know whether I’ll be able to change certain things for the better, or not at all. Both outcomes are possible. There is only one thing I will not concede: that it might be meaningless to strive in a good cause.”

If ever I doubt the value of working toward a more humane, peaceful, and healthy world, I remember Havel. I cannot control the outcomes of my efforts, but it will always be meaningful that I do my best and embrace my responsibility to work towards what I believe is good and right.

My his words be of value and inspiration to you, too.

In gratitude to Vaclav Havel.

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. 

Filed under: changemakers, heroes, politics | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off

“Ask For Something & Then Do Something”: Young Changemaker Fiona Lowenstein

Posted on October 28, 2011 by zoeweil

Fiona Lowenstein was only 12 when she started relentlessly asking for what she wanted in order to create change. She’s heard “no” more times than she can count, but the yeses have been adding up, and Fiona now provides the inspiration and information for other girls to step up, step out, be heard, and make a difference through her website, Barbara’s Angels.

Watch Fiona’s TEDx talk, read her interviews of changemaking women, and then share her talk and website with every girl you know. Watch the talk now:

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.   

Filed under: changemakers, citizen activism, videos, websites, youth activism | Tagged: , , , , , , | Comments Off

Teaching: The Greatest Responsibility and Opportunity

Posted on August 26, 2011 by zoeweil

For my blog post today, I’m sharing a recent post I wrote for Common Dreams, a progressive news site. Here’s an excerpt from “Teaching: The Greatest Responsibility and Opportunity”:

“In 1987 I taught several week-long humane education courses to twelve-year-olds in a summer program offered at the University of Pennsylvania. I’ve spoken about the experience of watching those kids turn into activists overnight through in my TEDx talk, “The World Becomes What You Teach,” but what I haven’t spoken about very often is the long-term impact of something as seemingly fleeting as a middle schooler’s summer course experience.

Twenty-two years after teaching that first course, I invited one of those students, now an HIV/AIDS activist working for the mayor of New York City, to come to a talk I was giving in Manhattan. I hadn’t seen him in 18 years, and now the boy I remembered was a 35-year-old man. After the talk I introduced him to friends explaining that he was in the first humane education course I ever taught, and before I could even finish my sentence he interjected, ‘That course changed my life!’

During the many years I’ve been a humane educator, teaching about the interconnected issues of human rights, environmental preservation and animal protection in an effort to inspire solutionaries for a better world (and now through my work training others through the Institute for Humane Education’s, www.HumaneEducation.org graduate programs, online courses, workshops and resources), I’ve received many letters from students saying the week-long course they took ‘will stay with me for a lifetime’ and ‘was the most inspiring five days of my life.’ But it’s not simply week-long courses. Many times, even a single 45-minute presentation has stuck. I’ve run into several teenagers who’ve told me they remember a specific activity we did or something they learned from one brief visit to their classroom years earlier.

All this is to say that teachers have a profound, life-long influence on their students even through the briefest of interactions. Virtually all of us have memories of a teacher who changed our lives. And since teachers are generally with their students not for 45 minutes or a week, but an entire year or more, that impact could (and should) be tremendous. Which means that teaching may carry both the greatest opportunity and the gravest responsibility of any profession.”

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“

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

Filed under: changemakers, education, humane education | Tagged: , , , , , | Comments Off

Meeting a 70-Year-Old Woman Finishing the Appalachian Trail

Posted on September 9, 2010 by zoeweil

Yesterday I hiked the last leg of the Appalachian Trail (AT) up Katahdin Mountain in Maine with my good friend and fellow humane educator, Freeman Wicklund. Freeman began the AT in Georgia in March and hiked more than 1,300 miles to Connecticut before a stress fracture in his foot laid him up for a month of healing. He hitchhiked up to Maine on Labor Day to resume the trail, this time heading south.

We started climbing the magnificent, but arduous Katahdin at 8 a.m. While the mountain was open to hikers, it was a “Class II” day meaning that hiking beyond treeline was not recommended. Katahdin was shrouded in cold fog with intense wind gusts. There are sections of the ascent where there are thousand foot drops on either side of a fairly narrow crest. There’s no question that this can be a dangerous mountain.

Just before we broke treeline we passed a small, older woman who had been hiking the AT in sections. She was about to finish the AT at Katahdin, having just turned 70 years old two days earlier. Shortly after meeting her we ran into two tall, strong, fit, 40-something men on their way down. Excited to see people already descending at 11 a.m. (we must be close I thought), I asked about their summit experience. Turns out they hadn’t made it. The stronger and fitter of the two remarked that they’d gotten within 1.5 miles of the top but turned back because the winds were so strong he was almost knocked down (despite, as he said, being 175 pounds). It wasn’t worth it, he continued. I think he was trying to convince himself of the rightness of his own personal decision, so I was not deterred, but I felt uneasy, especially given that I only weigh 96 pounds. I also found myself thinking about the 70-year-old woman who didn’t weigh much more than I. We’d encountered some very challenging climbing, and the rocks were slippery. The winds were already pretty high. If it was going to get even worse, would we make it? Would she?

As the ascent got steeper and more exposed, we encountered a young woman who had hunkered down among some rocks while her companions continued the ascent. She was uncomfortable with the quarter mile of narrow rocks in the high winds. Another warning. Freeman and I carefully continued, staying low and following the 3-point rule (keep three limbs on the rock at all times rather than stand up and walk on the slippery, jagged rocks and risk a wind gust knocking you off the mountain). We made it just fine and hiked the final 1.3 miles on the beautiful and flat Tablelands to Maine’s tallest peak. We ate a leisurely lunch in a spot protected from the winds, missing the successful ascent of the 70-year-old woman we’d met below. But we ran into her and her companion on the way back, and were delighted to know she’d made it. We descended in close proximity, all of us proceeding with some trepidation as the hard spots are often much harder coming down than going up. She managed each of them with such grace, and I found myself in awe of this remarkable woman, who at age 70 had accomplished an extraordinary feat – completion of a 2,000+ mile journey on a harrowing mountaintop. I thought of the much younger, fitter, stronger man we’d passed who’d turned back. I don’t by any means want to criticize his decision. More than half the climbers turned back that day – a wise choice for them. But the tenacity, perseverance, and joyful beauty of this dedicated and strong-willed woman inspired me. She was not at all foolhardy: she planfully prepared, gave herself plenty of time, and took great care in climbing safely. She was not in danger, because she was ready. Ready to succeed at her goal; ready to live every moment of her life fully; ready to embrace her dreams; ready to defy stereotypes that diminish us at all ages.

Would that we all lived with such exuberance and challenged ourselves to achieve all that we are able.

Zoe Weil
Author of Most Good, Least Harm

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

Filed under: heroes, mindfulness, MOGO (Most Good) | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

In Memory of Terri Warm

Posted on August 2, 2010 by zoeweil

Last year I was doing a book tour for Most Good, Least Harm in the mid-Atlantic states, and I was invited to do a presentation in New Jersey at the home of a wonderful activist who invited the community into her living room to hear me speak and put me up in her lovely guest room. One of the attendees was Terri Warm. Terri’s name fit her perfectly. She was one of the kindest, warmest people I’d ever met.

Because my host had to leave earlier than I the next morning, Terri offered to come over with breakfast. I didn’t know when she made this offer that she had just undergone a chemo treatment the day before. The next morning, Terri arrived with a feast – a warm, home-cooked breakfast, fresh fruit, juice, and good cheer. Terri was in her early 50s but she looked no older than 40. She shared her story with me, about her ill health in her early thirties and the assumption of doctors that she was a hypochondriac. At thirty-five, so sick she was admitted into the hospital, she was finally diagnosed. She had stage four cancer. The doctors told Terri to invite anyone she wanted to visit, and everyone was allowed to ignore visiting hours. They didn’t think she’d ever walk out of that hospital.

Terri surprised everyone. She not only walked out of the hospital, she went into complete remission for years. Her stage four cancer came back twice, and the second time she beat it again. The third time, when I met her, was disappointing for Terri, but she was optimistic that she would survive her cancer once again and had a phenomenal attitude about her challenging treatment. I, too, felt confident that Terri would live to be an old lady.

Sadly, I just learned that Terri Warm passed away a month ago. Although I’d met Terri only this one time, I wept. What a loss. Terri was a role model for me: an awesome activist, a generous and kind person to all, and someone who savored every breath, every gift that life brings, and believed in the good in people. She was positive, resilient, and beautiful in every way. The world needs more Terri Warms. I know that I will try to embody those qualities I saw in her. I hope that others will, too.

Thank you Terri for all that you did in your too-short, but so fruitful life. Your legacy will endure.

Zoe Weil

Filed under: changemakers, goodness, gratitude, MOGO (Most Good) | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Comments Off

Zoe Weil Guest Post on Eco Child’s Play: We Must Raise Compassionate, Conscientious Children

Posted on February 16, 2010 by zoeweil

Zoe has a guest post over at Eco Child’s Play, a blog focused on green parenting. Zoe’s post challenges parents to raise conscientious and compassionate children. Here’s an excerpt:

“We parents can resist cultural messages that are shallow and lack meaning and deep purpose, but it is no easy task. As if raising children weren’t hard enough, raising deeply humane children in a culture replete with materialism, endless competition, greed, either/or thinking and myopia, is profoundly challenging. We cannot do it without a deep personal commitment to modeling humane values, without a community of like-minded parents, without schools and teachers that support and reinforce our great purpose, and with endlessly blaring media messages that undermine our values at every turn.”

Read the entire post.

In March, the Institute for Humane Education is offering a month-long distance learning course for parents who want to raise compassionate, conscientious children. Raising a Humane Child starts March 1. Register now!

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

Filed under: humane parenting, MOGO (Most Good) | Tagged: , , , , , , | Comments Off

Tribute to Sophie

Posted on December 28, 2009 by zoeweil

In January 1998 a young German Shepherd was brought by the police into the clinic where my husband works as a veterinarian. She was a stray with severe nerve damage in her right rear leg, likely the result of having been hit by a car. After two weeks, during which no one claimed her, she needed a home – ours. When our then five-year-old son saw her, he was initially a little frightened by her. She was big, ungainly on her injured leg and a wee bit ferocious-looking. But Sophie, as we named her, was anything but ferocious. She was a gentle girl.

Although not in the least high-strung, Sophie ran around our meadow with glee, dragging her nerve-damaged leg behind her even as she barreled into people, oblivious when she was on a tear. After a year, my husband had to amputate her leg. He’d tried to save it, but despite booties and regular care, her toes kept getting abscesses. She couldn ’t feel her foot. Sophie seemed depressed for a few days after her surgery, but she never complained. She learned to move gracefully on three legs and soon chased kids around the pond, never letting her disability stand in the way of a good game of tag.

Although Sophie’s manner was generally calm and elegant, her exuberance snuck out in funny ways. When she lost her hearing later in life, thatdidn’t stop her from “whoa, whoa, whoaing ” loudly for food at 5:55 p.m. each night. She never vocalized for petting, though, just sat quietly as she was petted, and pawed your arm if you dared to stop.

Her best friend in the household for many years was our other three-legged dog, Griffin, also a rescue who’d been hit by a car and then abandoned. Griffin really was ferocious (he’s calmed down in his dotage), and the two of them were quite a pair: Griffin, weighing under ten pounds and ready to bark your head off (as well as bite it), trying to dominate the gracious, dignified Sophie. Sophie always indulged him.

Until she became too old, Sophie joined us on all our hikes. There were many times she couldn’t maneuver a steep rocky area, so she’d wait patiently in position for one of us to lift her rear leg up and help her. Then off she’d run.

She loved to swim. She joined me when I would swim laps around our pond and would overtake me as I’d swim in the ocean out to an island that appears at low tide. She’d get to the island, shake herself off, and lie down to wait for me. In her old age, she’d often go down to the pond alone to go for swim, then come back and climb on the couch, sopping wet, to take a nap. She loved sitting quietly in the grass in summer and on a snow bank in winter, with her head up, surveying the world around her. She also loved my garden, a bone of no small contention between us. For the last couple of summers, she ate the lion’s share of our asparagus, always managing to get the spears just as they were tall and ready to pick.

Sophie was quite compliant but she had a sneaky side. She seemed to accept that she wasn’t allowed on the bed (she was a very smelly dog); that is, until we left the house, and she’d sometimes climb up and queenly lay her head on the pillow. When we’d catch her sleeping there, she was quick to climb off the bed, seemingly contrite.

Sophie died a week ago on the winter solstice. She was in the end stages of bladder cancer, and we euthanized her the day that we could tell that all that was left was suffering. She still had not complained, even during her last twenty-four hours in which shecouldn’t rest. She was close to thirteen years old.

Sophie modeled so many wonderful qualities. She was kind and friendly, knew how to share, never held a grudge, and was happy to play or to rest as the case might be.

I wish I had half the good qualities Sophie modeled every day. I’m trying to cultivate them.

I miss you Sophie. Thank you for everything.

~ Zoe Weil
Author of Most Good, Least Harm and Above All, Be Kind

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

Filed under: gratitude | Tagged: , , , , , , | Comments Off

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 425 other followers