Attention Countries with Declining Birthrates: You Do Not Need to Produce More Babies

Posted on March 14, 2013 by zoeweil
Image courtesy EnvironmentBlog/Flickr.

The earth is populated by over 7 billion people and growing. Those 7 billion people need adequate food and clean water, a home, and economic opportunity. Approximately 1 billion of them don’t currently have adequate food or clean water. The great majority of people around the globe would like nothing more than to have what the average American has, even though the evidence suggests that our planet’s resources are insufficient for everyone to obtain such a standard of living and the resulting environmental devastation might well be catastrophic.

Despite these sobering statistics, wealthy countries are bemoaning their declining birthrates, including the United States (see this recent Newsweek article). Apparently, many “selfish,” “childless” couples are impacting the future solvency of our country because there won’t be enough young people to care for the aging population.

It’s worth deconstructing this concept of selfishness versus selflessness. There is nothing selfless about choosing to have biological children. In fact, in an overpopulated world like ours, it’s rather selfish to create more people, especially when there are so many children who need homes.

I know. I was one of those people who decided to have a biological child, knowing there were plenty of orphans in need.

My desire to create another human being with my husband and participate in the grand unfolding of the lifecycle so eclipsed my values that even though I think it’s better to adopt, I chose to get pregnant. There was nothing selfless about it. Yet it’s the couples who choose not to have children who are routinely judged as selfish. They’re also asked regularly why they don’t want children, as if there is something wrong with them. Meanwhile, couples who reproduce are rarely, if ever, asked why they want kids.

There are people all over the planet desperate to emigrate to the many Western countries that have experienced declining birthrates. Instead of encouraging citizens in countries such as ours to have more children (and providing monetary incentives to do so), why not encourage more immigration of young people and the adoption of orphans?

There are ways to solve the challenge of an aging population that don’t include increasing the number of people in an overpopulated world. We need to meet the problem of an aging populace creatively and wisely, not by adding to an existing and growing overpopulation problem.

~ 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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John Kasona: How Poachers Become Caretakers

Posted on January 31, 2013 by zoeweil

In a world in which we are endlessly encouraged to think in either/or terms; us versus them; the good guys versus the evildoers; Republican versus Democrat; environment versus jobs; it is refreshing to contemplate transformation, change, and solutionary thinking, as John Kasona does in his TEDx talk.

So take a look at how poachers became caretakers, and then remember that we have the power to transform unjust, cruel, and destructive systems.

All we have to do is teach our children that this is their job — and a job for all of us: to develop innovative solutions to our challenges and create a humane 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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The Novel Everyone Should Read: Unsaid

Posted on January 28, 2013 by zoeweil

Periodically, I read a novel that I want to include in our humane education graduate programs because the novel speaks a deeper, more poignant and more powerful truth than any work of non-fiction.

Unsaid by Neil Abramson is one such novel.

In it we learn about the depth of human compassion, as well as human cruelty, towards animals. We learn about the ways in which we are like other animals, rather than hearing the unceasing societal litany about our differences. We learn about the ways in which using our talents and skills in service to our values brings peace, solace, joy, and redemption. We learn about kindness. But lest you think this is a teacherly book with all this learning going on, it is also one of those page turners that is nearly impossible to put down.

If you read one book of fiction this year, let it be Unsaid.

~ 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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Believe and Never Give Up

Posted on January 24, 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 “Believe and Never Give Up”:

“… while the evidence is clear that we’re living in less violent times, we are simultaneously living in more dangerous times because we now have the capacity to cause so much irrevocable destruction of our planet. Climate change and habitat destruction are leading to the extinction of so many species that we may lose half of them by the end of this century. Nuclear weapons – tens of thousands of them – are a constant threat. A growing human population, all desirous of a better standard of living, could denude our planet.

And yet, never before have we had the capacity to collaborate and innovate with people across every border to solve our challenges. Anyone who says that we cannot feed the world through humane and sustainable agriculture; produce products ethically and sustainably; develop enough renewable energy to meet our needs; cure cancer and other diseases without animal experimentation; be safe without the war machine, or have thriving economies without endless growth in the GDP simply lacks imagination. This is why imagination, the capacity to envision solutions to our challenges, is the most essential ingredient in the complex recipe that will lead us closer to a peaceful, just, and healthy world. This is why it’s so critical that we nurture our children’s – and our own – imagination, our birthright as human beings.”

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 TEDxConejo talk: “Solutionaries”
My TEDxDirigo talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“
My TEDxYouth@BFS “Educating for Freedom”

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My Dogs Are in the 1 Percent

Posted on October 24, 2012 by zoeweil

The other day, when my husband and I were in the woods with our dogs, and they were joyfully running and playing and sniffing and scratching, I commented that our dogs are definitely in the 1 percent. My husband was quick to point out that they were in the .01 percent. I said, “like Warren Buffett,” and he agreed. Our dogs’ lives are just so good, and they even have live-in, full-time, free health care because my husband is a veterinarian.

It was interesting to realize what constituted life in the 1 percent for a dog. It was pretty simple. Our dogs are in the 1 percent because they live in a beautiful place where they get to run freely and play to their hearts’ content, exploring woods and fields and swimming in ponds and the ocean. They are in the 1 percent because they’re rarely left alone and have someone to pet them, brush them, feed them, and play with them every day of their lives. They are in the 1 percent because they have adequate and nutritious food and good care when they’re ill. They are in the 1 percent because they are sheltered in a home, protected from the elements, and have a comfortable place to sleep and rest. They’re in the 1 percent because they have one another and are never lonely. And they are in the 1 percent because there are just so many dogs all over the world who are abandoned, caged, abused, neglected, hungry, lonely, scared, and homeless.

Dogs don’t have very extravagant wants. Some dogs other than ours might have fancier dog beds, collars, and leashes. They might have more expensive toys or elaborate dog houses, but they aren’t in a percentage more elite than my dogs, because dogs don’t care about such things. To be in the 1 percent, all a dog needs are what’s described above.

The concept of the 1 percent and the 99 percent, made so popular and powerful by the Occupy movement would, I believe, vanish, if the 99 percent all had their basic needs met. Would we really care that someone made millions each year as long as everyone had shelter, adequate food, clean water, economic opportunity, health care, access to their energy needs, and basic freedoms of speech, religion, assembly, and petition? As long as everyone was free from abuse, cruelty, exploitation, and oppression?

I look forward to the day when we don’t pay much attention to the 1 percent because we’ll all have our needs met and all be able to pursue our dreams and all be contributing to a healthy and just world. I look forward to the day when the 99% means just this.

~ 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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Everyone Can Do One Thing

Posted on October 22, 2012 by zoeweil

In our graduate programs at the Institute for Humane Education, our graduate students watch quite a lot of videos. The films cover human rights, environmental preservation, animal protection, and cultural issues, and many – if not most – are difficult to sit through because they depict the grave problems we face in the world and the injustices that still need to be overcome. In order to teach about pressing global challenges and cruelties, we must understand them. In order to prepare youth to be conscientious choicemakers and engaged changemakers, we need to teach them about the challenges humans confront and the looming catastrophes we will face if we don’t act wisely. We cannot do this if we aren’t fully informed ourselves.

Yet, how can we remain hopeful, enthusiastic, positive, and optimistic if we continually expose ourselves to atrocities? This is one of the great paradoxes of being a humane educator. Currently, the new film series Half the Sky, based on the book of the same title by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, has been airing on PBS. It’s an extremely difficult film to watch. Chronicling the plight of brutalized and exploited girls and women in the world, there is little left unsaid or unseen. It is easy to watch this film and sink into despair and despondency. And for some of our humane education students this is a real danger.

And yet, as Somaly Mam, a child prostitute turned activist to stop sex trafficking and help girls who have been sold into prostitution, said in the film, “Everyone can do one thing.” If ever there was a person who could have fallen into permanent despair, here she is. Yet Somaly Mam is a paragon of determined energy, hopefulness, and action, beaming as she carries on work that exposes her to the most extreme cruelty and brutality perpetrated on children.

Everyone can do one thing. The trick is to discover what one thing one ought to do. We each have our specific concerns, our own special talents, the skills we’ve cultivated, and the things that bring us joy when we do them. Finding our “one thing” is a process of melding our concerns, talents, and passions, and discovering that sweet spot where they come together. When we do this, exposing ourselves to cruelties and atrocities is bearable, because we know we are making a difference. We are, through our actions, confirming Joan Baez’ great realization: “Action is the antidote to despair.”

It’s crucial that we expose ourselves to the brutalities in the world and not turn away. It’s critical to see with our eyes what others have to endure with their bodies. It’s important, because if we don’t know, we can’t act. But just as important is that we find our one thing to do, so that our witnessing leads to positive change and leaves us empowered and joyful, not depressed and impotent. For humane educators, we bring our knowledge to others, preparing our students to be problem-solvers for a better world. There’s little as heartening as this.

~ 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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Art and Humane Education

Posted on October 8, 2012 by zoeweil
Image copyright David Revoy.

The arts are a powerful way to educate. In a previous post, I wrote about educating through drama and comedy. Today I want to say a few words about the visual arts.

IHE board member, Robert Shetterly, is perhaps the best contemporary example of an artist educating through this paintings. His Americans Who Tell the Truth portrait series  offers stunning portraits of historic and current Americans who have worked to make a difference, right wrongs, and “tell the truth.”

Rob travels the U.S. bringing his paintings to schools and teaching about changemakers through their stories and through a quote from the subject that he etches into each portrait. These stories and the power of these portraits offer profound opportunities to learn about pressing issues and how to create positive change.

Donna Simons, a painter in New York, has recently been showing her powerful art that calls upon us to consider what we are consuming when we eat animals. Sue Coe’s work also explores our relationship with animals, compelling viewers to consider how we treat nonhuman animals through disturbing and thought-provoking images.

I recently came across this work by French illustrator David Revoy, bringing a social justice message home to the viewer in a way far more powerfully and quickly than an essay on inequality.

There are so many ways to utilize art in the service of changemaking, and so many ways for art educators to become humane educators, inviting their students to create such art as well.

~ 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“

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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.

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Savor and Save: The Key to Being a Lifelong Changemaker

Posted on August 6, 2012 by zoeweil

For my blog post today, I’m sharing a recent essay I wrote for One Green Planet, a website dedicated to ethical choices. Here’s an excerpt from “Savor and Save: The Key to Being a Lifelong Changemaker”:

William F. Schulz, the former executive director of Amnesty International USA, once wrote:

“I think we who work for justice and come face to face regularly with its negation are at risk of losing that which animates all healthy beings: the capacity to respond to the graciousness draping the world in colors vivid and electric, the warmth of the sun, a lover’s touch. If we neglect to notice these, why attend to anything else? E.B. White said, ‘Every morning I awake torn between a desire to save the world and an inclination to savor it. This makes it hard to plan the day.’ But if we forget to savor the world, what possible reason do we have for saving it? In a way, the savoring must come first.”

How often have I felt this very same conflict?

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 TEDxConejo talk: “Solutionaries”
My TEDxDirigo talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“

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Top 5 Ways Humane Education Can Save the World

Posted on August 1, 2012 by zoeweil
Image courtesy of DonkeyHotey 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 “Top 5 Ways Humane Education Can Save the World”:

I’ve spent lots of time trying to determine the most effective and strategic approach to creating a healthy, just and humane world for all people, animals and the environment. Given limited time and resources and the enormous challenges we face, what is the very best way to create positive change in the world? Legislation and politics? Entrepreneurship and innovative technologies? Investigative reporting? Protest? Direct action and rescue? Making personal choices that are humane and sustainable?

I was so excited to watch The Story of Stuff’s new animated video “The Story of Change,” which echoed much of what I’ve been teaching and writing about (including in my recent TEDx talk, Solutionaries). Annie Leonard, whose “Story of Stuff” video introduced millions of people to the underlying effects of our products and consumerist culture, points out that we can’t buy our way out of looming catastrophes and dangerous systems of production by choosing the greener and more humane products – although choosing such products over those that are inhumane and toxic is a first step.

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 TEDxConejo talk: “Solutionaries”
My TEDxDirigo 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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