Humane Edge E-News November 2009

• ENHANCE YOUR TEACHING WITH OUR NEW CHILDREN'S LIT RESOURCE SECTION
• 5 TIPS FOR TEACHING ABOUT AMERICAN INDIANS
• INVEST IN A HUMANE WORLD & YOU COULD WIN A HUMANE EDUCATOR'S LIBRARY WORTH $500
  
• FEATURED RESOURCE: UNLEARNING INDIAN STEREOTYPES
  
• HUMANE EDUCATION IN ACTION: CULTIVATING COMPASSIONATE CHILDREN
• KINDLE CONFERENCE CONNECTS, INSPIRES
  
• FEATURED STUDENT: CHARLEY KORNS

ENHANCE YOUR TEACHING WITH OUR NEW CHILDREN'S LIT RESOURCE SECTION

Bring a new element to your teaching: check out our new Children's Literature section in our website's Resource Center, showcasing more than 100 suggested titles that you can use in your humane education work (as an educator or parent). We've divided the titles into broad categories (such as Animal Protection, Human Rights, etc., as well as general types (fiction picture books, non-fiction chapter books, etc.). But, we've also included annotations and keywords to help you find titles that will meet your needs and infuse your work with variety and vibrancy.

We'll be adding to this resource regularly, so email Marsha if you have suggestions for titles. We'd also love to hear about how you're using literature in your humane education work.

Image courtesy of KOMUnews via Creative Commons.

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5 TIPS FOR TEACHING ABOUT AMERICAN INDIANS

As a teacher or parent, you may love reading Native American folktales to your kids, or sharing your favorite books, like Little House on the Prairie or Brother Eagle, Sister Sky. It may be as normal to you as breathing to celebrate Columbus Day and Thanksgiving each year, and your child wants to dress up as “an Indian,” not out of any disrespect, but because she thinks they’re cool. But such inadvertent perpetuation of bias, misinformation and stereotypes can do a lot of harm.

All you have to do is glance at the media to know that racism, stereotypes and bias are alive and well in the U.S. And, while many ethnic groups endure these prejudices and indignities, there’s a special category of oppression for Native peoples of North America. This continent belonged to hundreds of nations before colonialists arrived and, bluntly, stole their lands, freedom, and often, lives from them. And, while there are derogatory terms used for most groups who are oppressed, American Indians are the only ones who still have mascots and sports teams named after them. Many people still dress up as an “Indian” for Halloween or other costumed-events.  You’ll still find alphabet books in which “I” is for “Indian” – or that books about Native peoples tend to glom them all together into one mosaic of mishmashed culture. Children study Native peoples in school, but it’s usually a quick skimming through their past (“Each group will choose a tribe to research.”) or surrounding Columbus (who had a significant hand in the enslavement and genocide of Indians) and/or Thanksgiving.

Here are 5 tips to help increase your awareness and improve your teaching (or parenting) regarding the Indigenous peoples of North America:

1. Do your homework. Before you begin teaching about Native peoples, research accurate, appropriate information and resources, so that you can be confident that what you’re sharing isn’t some dehumanized, romanticized or antiquated version of Native life and culture. There are numerous useful resources out there, many created and maintained by American Indians themselves. A couple of examples:  the list of Native American websites by created Lisa Mitten, and the National Museum of the American Indian, which has online exhibitions, as well as resources for educators.
   
   
2. Choose books, resources and materials that portray Native peoples accurately. There are a plethora of books, films and other materials that perpetuate negative and/or inaccurate stereotypes and biases about American Indians, and few that portray their lives, voices and cultures with accuracy. One important question to ask yourself is whether the work is from a Native writer or not. Some might think that Native American legends and folklore would be safe, but authors who “retell” these stories aren’t always careful, respectful, or cognizant of Native cultures. There are some good resources available to help you. For example, an article from School Library Journal offers an annotated list of books to choose from, and a longer list of suggested titles comes from the same author of the SLJ article, Debbie Reese, who is an Assistant Professor of American Indian Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and who runs the blog American Indians in Children’s Literature (which is itself an excellent resource).
   
   “I is for Inclusion: The Portrayal of Native Americans in Books for Young People,” (PDF) created by the American Indian Library Association, is another useful resource, which offers a brief overview of what to look for in books for young people, provides suggested resources, a few titles to avoid and several to look for.
   
   And, Oyate is a community-based Native organization that provides books, DVDs and other materials and resources about Native peoples.
   
   
3. Watch out for stereotypes and biases.  Films like Disney’s Pocahontas. Books like The Indian in the Cupboard. The Redskins. The Tomahawk chop. Halloween costumes. We’re surrounded by stereotypes about Native peoples. Many are less blatant than the above, and we in mainstream culture don’t even give them a second thought. But such biases are a detriment to the well-being of Native peoples and condone and nurture institutional racism on a large but largely unnoticed scale.  Just one example: psychologists and justice advocates are supporting a group who is suing to end the Redskins NFL trademark because such perpetuated stereotypes have been shown to “depress the self-esteem and feelings of community worth and limit the aspirations of Native high school and college students.” Additionally, consider, when you’re teaching about whatever topic – science, history, literature, art – are American Indian voices and views represented? Remember that bias is also about who or what is not included. Look for resources such as “Erasing Native American Stereotypes” and the Unlearning Indian Stereotypes DVD from Rethinking Schools to help you with these challenges.
   
   
4. Get out of the past. Many school children (and no few adults) think of Indians as something that existed in the past. When learning about Native peoples, it’s often from an historical perspective and not about their lives today. History is an important part of everyone’s culture, but so is the present. Look for resources and teaching ideas for exploring Native lives and cultures today. When people think about the atrocities perpetrated on American Indians, they also think of the past. But, Indians are still adversely affected by the choices of mainstream culture and government policies. But, avoid the mistake of portraying Native peoples as helpless victims. The hundreds of nations offer rich and varied lives, cultures, issues and leaders to explore.
   
   
5. Dive deeper and broader into resources and issues. Much teaching about Native peoples centers around a cursory exploration as part of Columbus Day or Thanksgiving, or perhaps a “unit” exploring tribes as they lived in the past. Avoid these pitfalls, and look for richer, more meaningful teaching. But, if you are going to teach about Columbus, then use a resource such as Rethinking Schools’s book, Rethinking Columbus, which provides a broader and deeper exploration of the issues. If you are teaching about Thanksgiving, forego the standard “Indians and pilgrims” treatment and look to resources such as American Indian Perspectives on Thanksgiving and resources such as those suggested on Oyate and Debbie Reese’s blog. If you’re required to teach one of the books on the “biased” list, then pair that with an exploration of the stereotypes, biases and misrepresentations present in the book, and then choose an additional book that portrays Native peoples more accurately. And remember that American Indian children are one of many cultures and ethnicities potentially represented in your classroom. Have students learn more and share about their own cultures and traditions with their fellow students. Look at the common challenges they share. Celebrate changemakers and leaders from a variety of cultures, not just the traditional Western perspective.
   
   For additional ideas, check out resources such as:
   
   Debbie Reese’s essay “Teaching Young Children About Native Americans.”
   
   The article “The Voices of Power and the Power of Voices: Teaching with Native American Literature” (PDF) by Marlinda White-Kaulaity.  

Image courtesy of patrickmccully via Creative Commons.

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INVEST IN A HUMANE WORLD & YOU COULD WIN A HUMANE EDUCATOR'S LIBRARY WORTH $500

by Zoe Weil, IHE's President

This past spring I was asked to be the speaker at our local high school’s National Honor Society induction. I invited the audience to analyze the effects a conventional, pesticide-sprayed, sweatshop-produced T-shirt had on people, animals, and the environment.  I also asked them to consider what clothing and what new systems of production and distribution might do more good and less harm.  I do this activity with many items, including a fast food cheeseburger, a bottle of imported water, and more.

After the talk, one of the inductees – a bright, hard-working junior who plans to be a physician one day – told a friend that my talk made her angry because, as she said:

“We should have been learning this since kindergarten!”

I couldn’t agree more.

In fact, here at the Institute for Humane Education (IHE) we believe that the very purpose of schooling should be to provide students with the knowledge, tools, and motivation to become engaged solutionaries for a better world. 

We need your help to reach more educators, administrators and activists who will ensure that humane education spreads and infuses schooling everywhere.  Your support will help IHE, our students and our graduates to make the creation of a humane world the overarching goal of learning and teaching. Imagine the world we can create together if we succeed.

TAKE ADVANTAGE OF OUR SPECIAL OPPORTUNITY: Any gift of $15 or more postmarked by December 7, 2009 will be entered to win an extensive Humane Educator’s Global Issues Library.  This exciting collection of more than 20 book titles (such as Dominion, Consuming Kids and Rethinking Globalization) and 4 educational DVDs was hand-selected by IHE faculty and has a total value of over $500!  

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FEATURED RESOURCE: UNLEARNING INDIAN STEREOTYPES

 
Unlearning Indian Stereotypes by Council on Interracial Books for Children. Enhanced by Rethinking Schools. 2008.

“…books and movies tell lies about Native people.”

A group of children from several different Indian nations talks about their experiences as American Indians and expresses their anger, sadness and frustration about the stereotypes and misperceptions that abound regarding their cultures and traditions. Unlearning Indian Stereotypes is a DVD that has taken a filmstrip first created by the Council on Interracial Books for Children in 1977 and digitized it, updating some of the images (such as maps). The DVD now features a 12-minute slideshow in which the children talk about common stereotypes regarding Native dress, housing and other aspects of their culture – especially those found in children’s books. We also gain insight into Native history through the eyes of these children, including as they discuss issues such as the many treaties that have been broken and mention why they don’t celebrate observances such as Thanksgiving or Columbus Day.

In addition to the slideshow, the DVD offers a complete transcript, sample articles about teaching American Indian issues and literature in the classroom, and other suggested resources. It has also separated out the images from the slideshow into separate files for classroom use.

Since most of the images are from 1977, they feel a bit outdated, and there are a couple minor visual flaws (such as one child having a second set of eyes in one frame), but the real strength of this piece is in hearing the powerful voices of Native children themselves telling us how they feel about the stereotypes and bias they’re exposed to today, as well as the history of what has happened to their peoples. 

While this is an important and relevant tool for teaching students of all ages about racism and the history of indigenous peoples of the U.S. – and for helping students think critically -- it’s disheartening that something more recent hasn’t been created to supersede this important work.  Still, Rethinking Schools has provided an essential teaching tool useful for anyone interested in helping create a just world.

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HUMANE EDUCATION IN ACTION: CULTIVATING COMPASSIONATE CHILDREN

Samantha Gentrup learned early in her business career that she wanted to contribute more to the world. Volunteering led to her decision to become a classroom teacher, where she worked with students to incorporate real world issues into lessons. The great response of her students led her to create a humane education course at her school, and then on to a career in humane education. Read our interview with Samantha.

Quick Facts:

Current hometown:  Chicago, Illinois
IHE fan since:  February 2008
Current job:  Humane Education Teacher
Your hero:  My grandparents
Book/movie that changed your life:  The Velveteen Rabbit (when I was a kid), Man’s Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl (as an adult).
Guilty pleasure:  Sleeping
Inspired by:  Anyone who is willing to stand up for what they believe in.
Love about yourself:  My passion and idealistic nature.
One of your strengths:  I am determined and do what I say I’m going to do.



IHE: What led you to the path of humane education?

SG: Long story….my undergrad degree is in business and communication and an IT internship turned into a full-time position after graduating in 1999.  As a software trainer, I enjoyed the nature of my work, the challenge, the travel, and the financial rewards, but something was missing.  I started volunteering in my free time – reading to residents at a nursing home, and tutoring at-risk children.  I thought this would be a way for me to give back, to help make the world a better place.  It wasn’t enough, so I began researching alternate career paths.  After exploring social work, school counseling, and teaching, I settled on becoming a teacher and enrolled in a graduate program and began teaching full time.  I was teaching special education and reading/writing.  In my classes, I incorporated real-world topics and lessons focusing on human rights, poverty, animal welfare, companion animals, climate change, recycling, etc., and called it my “compassion curriculum.”  My students really responded (at-risk students, 91% poverty rate in our district at the time), and kept asking for more.  Beyond the lessons, they began volunteering with me, and even started a humane teen club after volunteering at our local animal shelter.  They made care packages for soldiers serving in Iraq, cards for residents at nursing homes, and read to younger students at the elementary schools in our district.  One day in February 2008, I was teaching a lesson about service animals, and I was using an article from Best Friends magazine.  I needed more information for the lesson, so I visited the Best Friends Animal Society website.  While on their site, I came across the words “humane education,” and after reading about humane education, I realized that my compassion curriculum, and what I had been teaching my students, was actually called “humane education.”  This led me to IHE, and another organization in New York City called HEART (Humane Education Advocates Reaching Teachers).  As a result, I met with my principal and proposed that we offer a humane education class.  The school approved the class unanimously, and during the 2008-2009 school year, more than 450 students took the 6-week course.  After on-going communication with HEART in NYC, I decided to expand my reach and join HEART to help them gain momentum in Chicago.  I am currently a humane education teacher in Chicago for HEART.


IHE: Tell us about your work with HEART. What are your challenges? Successes?

SG: As a humane education teacher for HEART, I teach humane education lessons in Chicago public schools.  I am currently teaching in four different schools, reaching more than 440 students in grades 4-8.  The lessons are interdisciplinary and tie directly to reading, writing, science, math, and social studies core content.  The curriculum that I am using is a 10-lesson program that covers topics within the social justice realm, animal welfare, and environmental ethics.  Each lesson also includes extension activities for the classroom teacher to use, as well as modifications and accommodations for students with special needs within a collaborative learning environment.

The challenges to this point have been having enough resources to reach the schools that are requesting our program. There has been an overwhelmingly positive response to the HEART humane education program here in Chicago, and teachers, as well as administrators, are continuously asking for our program. Another challenge that I’ve found involves networking and unifying the efforts of organizations.  There are numerous non-profits in the area that are dedicated to making the world a better place and are seeking to empower young people, and I would love to find a way to unite these organizations so that if a school wants to focus on social justice issues, I can connect the school with the appropriate organization, and if the school wants to focus on companion animal issues, I can connect the school with the local shelter, or humane group.  As a teacher, I can see the connections between everyday issues and learning opportunities in the classroom.  I want to put this ability to good use to further advance the humane education movement and introduce humane education to as many students, teachers, and administrators as possible.



IHE: In order to get your Empowering Urban Youth class approved, you had to create a proposal and submit it to a team of teachers to approve. Can you talk about that process?

SG: I mentioned that briefly above as I was explaining how I became introduced to humane education, but to add to that I would mention that when I talked to my principal in Covington, Kentucky, about HEART and the concept of humane education and the opportunity to teach humane education in New York City, he asked me if I could do that there, in Covington, at Two Rivers Middle School.  I said that I would love to, that I didn’t know of a school that was doing something like that.  He asked me to put together a proposal for the school’s Site Based Decision Making team for the following Wednesday (he and I met on Friday).  I went to my reading class and told my students about the conversation with the principal.  I told them that I would be presenting to the SBDM team at school and I asked them how they felt about it.  My students were very excited at the possibility of having a humane education class as its own class, and they wanted to help me with the proposal.  We put together a PowerPoint presentation, and four students and I presented to the SBDM team.  The following morning, I learned from my principal that the humane education class had been approved unanimously.

At that point, I began creating the lessons for the 6-week humane education course, and began writing the curriculum map and class syllabus.


IHE: Any tips for other teachers who might want to start their own humane education class?

SG: Yes, start by integrating humane education lessons in their classes.  Have students create writing pieces, write and perform plays, create marketing materials, etc., as part of the lessons and showcase this student work.  Get students excited about the topics and about the possibility of being a part of changing the world.  Seek out volunteer opportunities, or create volunteer opportunities for the students.  Start small, with small, quick projects so that the students can feel successful, and constantly showcase these projects to the school, staff, administrators, parents, and community.  As the momentum builds, the students will want more, and this could lead to an after-school club, and maybe even a class.  The students are the most powerful voice, and any class proposal should involve them.


IHE: What are some of the curriculum materials that you chose to use for your course (books, websites, films, teaching ideas, etc.)?

SG: Here are some:
1.  The Emotional Lives of Farm Animals (video)
2.  Lost Futures: The Problem of Child Labor (video)
3.  Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson (book)
4.  Best Friends magazine articles
5.  The Meatrix  (online video)
6.  Recycle City (website)
7.  A hula-hoop to represent the Circle of Compassion
8.  Compassion in World Farming (video and handouts)
9.  Share the World (video)
10.  Their Future is in Your Hands (video)
11.  HSUS (website)
12.  Picture books depicting children that are part of child labor
13.  Ready, Set, Green by Graham Hill & Meaghan O'Neill (book - for daily factoids)
14.  Thanking the Monkey by Karen Dawn (book - for my own background knowledge)
15.  The Everything Kids Environment Book by Sheri Amsel (book)
16. The Power and Promise of Humane Education by Zoe Weil (book)
17.  Just Choices, Exploring Social Justice Today (video and materials)
18.  Bullying.org (website)
19.  United Streaming videos (a paid service from Discovery Education)
20.  NRDC Green Squad (website)
21.  Sustainable Table (website)
22.  Black Beauty by Anna Sewell (book)


IHE: You’ve mentioned that you’ve never had any “formal” humane education training.  What have been the strengths and challenges of that? Have you found it to be a help or hindrance?

SG: Since I’ve been integrating humane education concepts long before I knew it was called “humane education,” it’s hard to say whether my lack of formal training is a help or a hindrance.  I’m a very thorough person, and as most teachers do, I never really “leave” my job.  This means that I’m always learning, and anytime I see something that’s interesting or that makes me stop and think, in my mind, I create a lesson for it, and then sometimes I actually take that mental lesson and turn it into a lesson to teach in the classroom.  To do so, I do quite a bit of background research and as part of this background research, I read quite a bit of literature on various humane education concepts, as well as read magazine articles, publications, explore websites, and watch videos.  So, I think I was getting the humane education training, but at my own pace, using anything I could get my hands on. 

I feel comfortable with the topics that I am teaching as a humane education teacher, but I would like to take a formal class or at least be in a learning environment where I am working with other humane education teachers/students.


IHE: What are your thoughts about the power of humane education to positively transform the world?

SG: I am dedicating my career to the advancement of humane education.  I believe that all students should be exposed to these lessons and to this curriculum, as well as given the opportunity to explore further in the form of service learning and community outreach.  I believe in the notion that awareness + action = change.  As students become aware of these real-world, global issues and their connection with the issues, they feel empowered to act, and this leads to positive change.  Humane education ties to all content areas, and can be integrated into any classroom, and is a core element of interdisciplinary units of study.  Humane education is real-world learning. It’s now, it has an impact, and the students feel it, and as they learn, they realize their own individual potential for making the world a better place.  I have personally witnessed the empowerment that results from these lessons and the corresponding service learning and community outreach.  To see an inner-city student jumping for joy and shouting “We won, we won!” after a long day of holding signs on behalf of our local animal shelter on election day to urge voters to pass a levy to build a new shelter, and learning that the issue passed 55% to 45%, is a moment that all teachers can live for.  I will never forget that day, when 10 of my inner-city sixth graders stood in the rain on their day off, to ask voters to approve a levy for the shelter -- a shelter my students had been volunteering at for six months -- and that levy passed.  I was greeted at 7 a.m. the next morning at school with shouts of “We won, we won!”, and to see the hope and excitement in my students’ eyes as they realized that they personally had an impact on that levy, and that because of them, the homeless dogs and cats at the shelter would one day have a nice place to live, is why I believe wholeheartedly in humane education. 


IHE: Any future plans, dreams or projects?

SG: I don’t know, maybe open as many humane education organizations as I can in cities around the country, open a charter school founded on humane education, work with state departments of education to incorporate humane education curriculum into core content classes, work with local universities to incorporate humane education training into teacher preparation programs, and anything else I can think of to introduce humane education to as many students, teachers, administrators, and parents as I can.

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KINDLE CONFERENCE CONNECTS, INSPIRES

By Khalif Williams, Executive Director

The Institute for Humane Education had quite a presence at the Kindle conference in Portland, Maine last month. Throughout the weekend 100-200 participants, a modest but enthusiastic turnout representing all generations, whisked around the Arts District of downtown. A network of venues from art galleries to schools held keynotes, workshops, satellite broadcasts of the main Bioneers conference in California, and entertainment. It was a striking statement to weave such an important event literally into the community itself.

In the first few hours of the conference, IHE president, Zoe Weil, gave a very well-received feature plenary talk on shifting the purpose of education to create a more humane world. Later that same day she gave a MOGO workshop that drew about a third of the people in attendance that day. The following afternoon I conducted an interactive workshop called "The World Becomes What You Teach," which explored the purpose of education and called on participants to join the  movement toward educating for peace and sustainability.

IHE were proud partners of Kindle this year and plan on working with Kindle over the next several years to grow the conference and bring the voices of educators fully into the event as it develops.  Zoe and I are already looking forward to next year's event where we plan on amplifying the momentum for humane education that we've already created.

FEATURED STUDENT: CHARLEY KORNS

Dissatisfaction with his career and a trip to Southeast Asia led Charley to volunteering, and then to IHE. Now Charley is pursuing his M.Ed. in Humane Education and is actively building a life that reflects his values.

Read more about Charley.

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