“The World Becomes What You Teach”: An Interview With Humane Educator Zoe Weil

Zoe Weil first found herself drawn to the field of humane education in mid-1980s. While teaching 12- and 13-year-olds about animal protection and environmental preservation during the summer months, she witnessed the transformative potential of humane education firsthand. In the years since, Zoe has worked tirelessly to bring humane education to classrooms, workshops, animal sanctuaries, and homes across the country. While she started out as a humane educator, teaching children one group at a time, Zoe founded The Institute for Humane Education (IHE) in 1996 in the hopes of growing her message by training additional educators. Today, the IHE offers a series of humane education courses and workshops, including an online Humane Education Certificate Program (HECP); humane education and “MOGO” (most good) workshops; and a series of distance learning programs. In July, Zoe was inducted into the U.S. Animal Rights Hall of Fame at AR2010, where she was also one of 90 featured speakers.

I recently had the pleasure of speaking to Zoe about humane education, as well as animal, environmental and human rights activism – and why she believes that the former can help us bridge the gap between these (seemingly) disparate social justice movements.

On its website, the IHE identifies four key elements of humane education, including providing students with accurate (but age-appropriate) information; fostering curiosity, creativity, and critical thinking; instilling reverence, respect, and responsibility; and offering positive choices and tools for problem solving. What does humane education look like in action?

It looks like this: groups of curious students fully engaged with what they’re learning, asking great questions, eager to know more about critical issues of our time and what they can do to make a difference, with compassionate hearts and minds brimming with ideas.

Can adults benefit from humane education?

Absolutely! Our MOGO (most good) workshops and distance-learning courses are primarily filled with adults who want to align their choices with their deepest values and learn and grow in ways that help them live with more meaning, joy, and purpose. In fact we have a couple of these opportunities coming up for adults. Our month-long distance-learning course, A Better World, A Meaningful Life offers participants the opportunity to examine their deepest passions and values and align them with their daily choices; create (or redefine) their vision for their lives, and find ways to make a true difference in the world. People describe this course as life-changing, and the best they’ve ever taken. We have two upcoming MOGO workshops, too. One on Sept. 25 at the Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary in New York, and one on Oct. 2-3 at Farm Sanctuary in Orland, CA (more info here). Many adults crave this kind of education that invites them to dive deep into what’s most important to them.

You’ve been involved in the field of humane education for almost 25 years. In your opinion, how has the field evolved – and where do you see it going in the future?

When I began my work as a humane educator, most people who had heard the term perceived it as the purview of educators at humane societies who would teach about responsible care for companion animals. Interestingly, though, the founders of humane societies at the turn of the 20th century were also the founders of societies to protect children and defined humane education much more broadly as teaching about how we can be kind to everyone. In my work I’ve gone back to that original definition. At the Institute for Humane Education, we believe that humane education should explore the interconnected issues of human rights, animal protection, and environmental preservation in an effort to provide the knowledge, tools, and motivation for people to be conscientious choicemakers and engaged changemakers for a better world for all. In the future, I hope that this goal will become the very purpose of education, not an add-on to the curriculum, but the core of schooling.

As an “alternative” educator, you’ve expressed some frustrations with U.S. education system. Chief among these is the purpose of education in our society. What is the role of education today, and how does this differ from your vision for it?

Right now many would probably describe the primary purpose of schooling this way: to produce verbally, mathematically, and scientifically literate graduates who can find jobs and compete in the global economy. I absolutely agree that we need to graduate fully literate students, but to me these skills are foundational. They should not be the purpose of schooling. Given the grave problems we face, from global warming, to institutionalized cruelty and abuse of people and animals, to alarming rates of species extinction, to genocide and war, to lack of access to clean water, to poverty, and so on, we need to educate a generation to be solutionaries who have the skills and commitment to solve these escalating problems through whatever careers they pursue.

Your message stresses the idea of interconnections – between our treatment of nonhuman animals, the earth, and each other – and the need to address all of these to bring about a peaceful world. Can you give us an example of how humane education empowers students to draw these connections in everyday life?

One activity that we do often is called True Price, and in it students examine an everyday item, such as a conventional cotton T-shirt, bottled water, cell phone, fast food cheeseburger, and so on asking a series of questions about the item to discover the positive and negative effects it has on themselves, other people, animals, and the environment. Then we ask what systems perpetuate this particular item making it desirable and easy to obtain, and finally we explore what alternatives might do more good and less harm. Activities like these help students see connections very clearly. We have over 75 free downloadable activities on our website in our resources section, and anyone can use them to teach others.

In an article for Satya magazine, you point to humane education as the single most effective “path toward bridge-building” that you’ve found. As someone who self-identifies as a vegan feminist, this statement really resonated with me. Can you elaborate on this?

I believe that humane education is the most important and effective strategy not only for bridge-building but for creating a sustainable, just, peaceful, and humane world for all. This is because humane education addresses root problems. By interconnecting human rights, environmental preservation and animal protection, humane education doesn’t seek to find bandaids to solve a single problem, but true answers to entrenched and pervasive global challenges. It assumes that while none of us has the solution to every problem, students raised with knowledge about these interconnected issues and provided with the tools for problem-solving and the inspiration to make a difference will each contribute in their own ways and through their own professions to the unfolding of a better world.

What do you say to animal advocates who are indifferent to or dismissive of other social justice causes because they “don’t have the time” for them, or consider these issues “less important” than their animal rights activism? How about environmentalists or feminists who are similarly hostile towards nonhuman animals and their defenders?

Some people are drawn to specific issues and this is fine! If everyone committed to making a difference for others – whoever those others might be – our world would be a much better place. We need some activists focused narrowly, while others are focused on the big picture. The problem lies when people refuse to even hear about or adjust their own choices around issues that aren’t paramount to them. When I see sweatshop-produced, non-organic T-shirts or non-fair trade chocolate sold at animal rights conferences, or an environmental group hosting a meat-based dinner, or a feminist group where women are wearing fur coats, I’m upset that we haven’t come further in connecting the dots. What’s really upsetting though, is when one gently and respectfully points these inconsistencies of care out and the response is hostile. At an animal rights conference some years ago, a woman yelled out that sweatshop labor wasn’t “her issue.” But one doesn’t need to devote one’s life and efforts to ending sweatshop labor to simply choose different clothes and products to the greatest degree possible. It’s certainly challenging to do this, but that’s what our courses and workshops provide for people – the opportunity to inquire deeply and introspect so as to live with greater integrity overall even though they may focus on a specific issue.

One of our co-bloggers recently adopted a baby. Children can be a source of hope and inspiration for world-worn activists, particularly when they’re raised to celebrate – rather than suppress – their natural sense of compassion toward other animals. What advice can you offer to parents who are trying to raise vegan children in a non-vegan world?

Well, I wrote a whole book for parents called Above All, Be Kind: Raising a Humane Child in Challenging Times, and we’ll be offering a month-long distance-learning course for parents, Oct. 4-29 called Raising a Humane Child, so my advice would be to sign up for that course (it comes with the book)!

I was lucky enough to review Claude and Medea: The Hellburn Dogs when it was released. Genuinely animal-friendly stories, whether intended for children or adults, are somewhat of a rarity. Do you see any additional children’s books in your future? A sequel to Claude and Medea, perhaps?

I’ve written six books, and Claude and Medea is my personal favorite. I plan for it to be a series, so yes, stay tuned for a sequel!

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Photo copyright the Institute for Humane Education and is used with permission.

Title and caption: “MOGO Workshop – Bard College, NY – Zoe 7 Keys: At our MOGO Workshop held at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, IHE President Zoe Weil talks with workshop participants about the 7 keys to MOGO.”

In the photo, Zoe Weil stands at the front of a classroom, holding a maroon shirt and addressing her audience. Off to her right stands a whiteboard, which reads:

7 Keys to MOGO

1. Live your epitaph
2. Pursue joy through service
3. Make connections + self reflect
4. Model your message + work 4 change
5. Find & create community
6. Take responsibility
7. Strive for balance