Children Will Inherit the Earth, Here’s How We Can Make Sure They’re Prepared

Stories like these are happening across the globe as humane educators bring important global issues into their classrooms; foster their students’ reverence, respect, and sense of responsibility; teach them to be critical and creative system-thinkers and problem-solvers, and inspire them to make a difference.

What Does it Mean to be Humane?

One of the definitions of the word “humane” is: “Having what are considered the best qualities of human beings.”

Humane educators ask their students to identify these qualities, and the lists their students generate are always similar. They mention kindness, integrity, wisdom, fairness, courage, and perseverance. None say greed, violence, or hatred. Practically all include compassion and/or empathy on their list.

Once identified, humane educators help their students cultivate these qualities in a complex world in which every choice – from the food they eat to the electronics they buy to the clothes they wear to the ways in which they participate in democracy and prepare for careers – affects people, animals and ecosystems around the globe. This work entails teaching about the grave and pressing problems in the world and helping students to become solutionaries who are equipped and empowered to solve them.

Let’s Make Humane Education Synonymous With Education

Commitment to such an education is growing. I say this with some confidence. At the risk of demonstrating an embarrassing lack of humility, I feel compelled to write that my first TEDx talk, The World Becomes What You Teach, which introduced the idea of educating a generation of solutionaries as the very purpose of schooling in today’s world, became among the most popular and viewed TEDx talks. The speed and enthusiasm with which this vision has spread has made me realize that teachers, parents, administrators, change agents, and policy-makers are eager to re-examine the goal of education in today’s world, and that humane education is on its way to becoming the core of schooling.

Why is this vision being embraced so enthusiastically? Because people realize that unless our children are given the knowledge, tools, and opportunities to understand, address, and solve real-world problems such as Climate change, resource depletion, inequity, population growth, cruelty, massive extinctions, and much more, their future – no matter how verbally, mathematically, or scientifically literate they are – may well be bleak.

“People are awakening to the truth that if we love our children then we must prepare them properly to meet their future.”

There are thrilling things in the works across the globe to make humane education synonymous with education. Teachers everywhere are bringing these ideas and approaches into their classrooms, inspiring and preparing a generation of solutionaries.

Perhaps most exciting is the creation of a new, 21^st century, comprehensive, open-source, shareable curriculum and the opening of the first preK-12 Solutionary School in New York City based on that curriculum, that will serve as a replicable model for schools everywhere.

What Can You Do to Help Make Humane Education the Core of Schooling?

•  Contact your local legislators, school administrators, and teachers and share the vision and practice of humane education. Help them to understand that simply focusing on improved math and language arts skills is neither enough for our kids nor likely to leave them prepared for the important world-improving work they must do.
• Bring humane education into whatever settings suit your skills and personality. If you are a teacher, infuse your curriculum with relevant, global issues and prepare your students to be solutionaries. If you are not a professional teacher, that doesn’t mean you cannot educate others. You can offer an afterschool course or mentor a solutionary team; bring classes to adults and/or programs for children in libraries and camps. Teachers, parents, and activists will also find loads of free activities here.

Image source: Steve Holden/Wikimedia Commons