IHE’s president, Zoe Weil, began her career as a humane educator in 1985, before she even knew her work had a name. After meeting kindred spirit and fellow humane educator Rae Sikora in 1993, the two began imagining what might happen if a comprehensive humane education movement took hold. They co-founded IHE in 1996 (initially as the Center for Compassionate Living), creating the first workshops and programs to help others teach about human rights, environmental sustainability, and animal protection.
What was originally a two-person team in Surry, ME, has now grown into a multi-national organization with a growing team and vibrant community of educators and changemakers—who are inspiring and empowering countless people all over the world to build a sustainable and compassionate future for all.
Humane Educators Zoe Weil and Rae Sikora create IHE to propel forward the field of comprehensive humane education and prepare others to be humane educators.
IHE launches the first certificate program in comprehensive humane education in the U.S.
IHE affiliates with Cambridge College to offer the first M.Ed. in comprehensive humane education in the U.S.
The first student graduates from the M.Ed. program, completing a degree concentration in humane education that remains unique to this day.
Sowing Seeds Workbook created and Sowing Seeds Humane Education Workshops launched training thousands of people over the next seven years.
IHE’s online Humane Education Resource Center receives the Social Psychology Network Action Teaching Award honorable mention.
Zoe Weil gives her first TEDx talk, “The World Becomes What You Teach,” which becomes among the 50 top-rated and most-watched TEDx talks within a year, helping IHE reach a much bigger audience and advancing the goal of educating a generation of solutionaries.
Zoe Weil’s book, Most Good, Least Harm: A Simple Principle for a Better World and Meaningful Life, receives the Nautilus silver medal-winner award.
IHE affiliates with Valparaiso University and expands its offerings to include an M.Ed., M.A., M.A.L.S., and Graduate Certificate in Humane Education.
IHE partners with the Jane Goodall Institute and HEART to offer the first comprehensive Humane Education conference. The event sells out before the early registration deadline, necessitating a bigger venue at New York University.
Zoe Weil’s book, The World Becomes What We Teach: Educating a Generation of Solutionaries, is published and becomes required reading in a variety of university teacher education programs. IHE launches a Solutionary Program pilot and showcases student work in New York City.
IHE hosts the first regional Solutionary Summit sharing the work of middle and high school students in Maine who’ve participated in the Solutionary Program pilot.
IHE holds the second regional Solutionary Summit with middle and high school students solving real-world problems.
San Mateo County, CA, serving 113,000 students in 23 school districts, adopts IHE’s solutionary approach as the philosophy and framework for curriculum design and professional development, utilizing Zoe Weil’s book, The World Becomes What We Teach: Educating a Generation of Solutionaries, as the text for teachers.
IHE produces a free, digital Solutionary Guidebook for use by educators and activists across the globe.
IHE affiliates with Antioch University to offer graduate and doctoral programs and produces another free guide, How to Be a Solutionary, for youth and changemakers,
IHE launches a 30-hour Solutionary Micro-credential Program (SMP) for teachers to prepare them to integrate solutionary learning into classrooms and curricula.
The World Becomes What We Teach becomes an Amazon #1 Best Seller in the Philosophy and Social Aspects of Education.
IHE-trained educators bring the Solutionary Framework to their students in 13 countries, and we hire location-based solutionary coaches to help train teachers and adapt the framework to fit local culture, education systems, and issues.
Zoe Weil’s eighth book, The Solutionary Way: Transform Your Life, Your Community, and the World for the Better, broadens the application of the Solutionary Framework beyond the classroom, offering anyone a practical guide to ethically solving problems.
IHE’s approach to teaching with the Solutionary Framework is included in Hundred’s Global Collection as one of the most innovative and scalable approaches in education worldwide.
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“Changing the world one child at a time.” Those words have inspired my work for more than four decades in education, and they continue to inspire me now. We are at a pivotal point in the evolution of our world. We are facing a climate crisis, a health crisis, a crisis of racial justice, a crisis in our treatment of animals, a crisis of media bias. The list goes on. And perhaps our greatest crisis is our consistent struggle as a society to simply come together respectfully, intelligently, and ethically to solve our problems and save our planet. We need solutionaries. We need young people who have been educated not only to think critically, creatively, and systemically about real-world issues, but also to be passionate, persistent, and humane in their implementation of real-world solutions. And that is IHE’s mission: to support teachers and educational institutions in preparing young people to become solutionaries – and the next caretakers of our planet.
IHE offers a healing vision and a tangible pathway forward for a struggling world. As Executive Director, I am excited, humbled, and deeply honored to join with others to promote that vision and that pathway in ways that make them foundational to systems of education throughout the world – and to each child who is committed to making that world a better place.
Passionate about preparing young people to lead lives of joy and purpose, Steve Cochrane has had a remarkable journey through the field of education. It is a journey that has taken him from the campus of Princeton University, where he served as an admissions officer and an assistant dean of students, to the classroom of a public elementary school, where he had the privilege of teaching – and learning from – his fourth and fifth grade students. Steve has been a dorm director and associate dean of admissions at Wheelock College in Boston. He has also been an elementary school principal, a middle school principal, an assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction, and, prior to his work at IHE, he was the superintendent of the Princeton Public Schools in Princeton, New Jersey where he was honored with the award of County Superintendent of the Year. In each of these roles, Steve has collaborated with others to prioritize innovations in learning, wellness for students, equity, and a belief that every child should be supported and inspired to achieve their highest potential.
Steve received his undergraduate degree in English from Princeton University and his master’s degree in educational administration from Harvard. He is a competitive road cyclist who also enjoys the thrill of mountain biking. Steve and his wife are both vegans and advocates for holistic health. They currently reside in Spencerport, New York, with their two dogs and a very large Maine Coon cat.
