Solutionary Voices

Solutionary Voices

A Podcast with Zoe Weil

Influenced by Zoe Weil’s work as a humane educator, Solutionary Voices brings together guests on the forefront of building a more humane, just, and healthy world for all people, animals, and ecosystems that sustain life. Guests embody what it means to be a solutionary: someone who identifies inhumane, unjust, and unsustainable systems and works to transform them in ways that do the most good and least harm for all.

What problem are you working to solve?

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Season 1

  • Two People on a Blue Podcast Thumbnail
    When Neutrality Becomes Dangerous
    Reverend Kevin Ross, known as Rev Kev, asks how can faith, love, and public courage move people beyond silence and into meaningful action for justice? And how can we love across divides without becoming neutral in the face of harm?
  • Peter Singer: Animal Liberation and the Next Moral Frontier
    Peter Singer, philosopher and author of Animal Liberation, discusses fifty years of the modern animal liberation movement and where reason, emotion, and effective altruism fit in the fight to reduce unnecessary suffering.
  • The Importance of Immeasurables
    Abby Falik, Co-Founder of The Flight School, shares insights from her career working with young people in the transition from high school to whatever comes next. She discusses what it means to be human, elevating education for the immeasurables, not just for better test results, and putting learning about your own mind and heart at the center of education.
  • Can Awakening Help Heal a Divided World?
    Richard Lang introduces the Headless Way, a direct practice rooted in Douglas Harding’s teachings that invites people to notice their true nature beyond the face in the mirror. The episode explores awareness, nonseparation, death, love, and how a simple shift in perception may help us meet a divided world with greater presence and compassion.
  • How to Resist Algorithmic Drift
    Rahim Hirji discusses algorithmic drift, human agency, education, principled innovation, and the seven human skills needed to navigate AI responsibly. This episode explores how people, schools, and organizations can stay human while using technology with greater judgment, ethics, and purpose.
  • When Hope Becomes a Verb
    Rae Sikora, Co-Founder of the Institute for Humane Education, reflects on humane education, compassion for all life, animal protection, environmental responsibility, human rights, and the practice of meeting conflict with love rather than contempt.
  • Educating for Agency in an Age of Distraction
    Navin Amarasuriya of the Contentment Foundation explores educator wellbeing, student agency, attention, compassion, and contentment in a rapidly changing technological world.
  • Can We Build a World That Works for All?
    Shariff Abdullah, author of Creating a World That Works for All and founder of the Commonway Institute, frames his life’s work around a deceptively simple question: how do we create a world that works for all living beings?
  • The Olympic Medalist Challenging Dairy’s Myths
    Olympic silver medalist and Switch4Good Founder Dotsie Bausch discusses dairy, plant-based nutrition, school milk policy, food justice, animal protection, and how compassionate systems change can help people make healthier and more ethical choices.
  • The System Failures Behind Opioid Addiction
    Dr. Andrew Kolodny examines the opioid crisis as a public health emergency rooted in opioid addiction, overprescribing, pharmaceutical influence, regulatory failure, fentanyl deaths, and limited treatment access. The episode explores how prevention, treatment, responsible settlement funding, and stronger prescribing policy could help reduce overdose deaths and prevent future drug crises.
  • The Real Drivers Behind Inequity In America
    Ayo Magwood explores how structural racism drives health and education disparities and outlines data-driven, system-level solutions that move beyond bias training. This episode explores actionable strategies for addressing inequity through institutional design, healthcare innovation, and measurable outcomes.
  • From Success to Service
    Nimo Patel of Empty Hands Music reflects on moving from Wall Street and music industry ambition toward a life centered on service, art, children, and human connection. This Solutionary Voices episode explores how music, humility, and relationship can help plant seeds for a more compassionate and humane world.
  • What US Students Learned Living on $2 a day
    Shirin Karsan explores how interdependence, self-awareness, and human connection lead to peacebuilding. This episode highlights how recognizing our relational impact can transform division into understanding and create healthier systems.
  • Rethinking Journalism in an Age of Complexity
    Andrew Revkin discusses how climate change, journalism, and environmental systems require ongoing inquiry rather than simple solutions.
  • Human Connection in the Age of AI
    Michelle Culver explores how AI is transforming human connection and why young people are increasingly turning to technology for emotional and social support. This episode examines the risks and opportunities of AI in shaping the future of relationships and human interaction.
  • What Happens When You Stop Chasing Goals?
    Rudy Karsan shares how a life of extreme success led to emptiness, and why he now prioritizes joy, connection, and presence over achievement. This episode explores a powerful shift in what it means to truly feel alive.
  • Can Generosity Become Contagious?
    Tom Cledwyn, co-founder of Drop Dead Generous, on how ordinary people can create meaningful change without waiting to be extraordinary.
  • Rethinking Education for a Complex World
    Mary Pat Champeau on why education must evolve beyond knowledge delivery into a practice that cultivates awareness, responsibility, and transformative thinking.
  • Can Personal Healing Change the World?
    Mark Anderson on the inner collapse that led him away from conventional success and toward a deeper understanding of healing, nervous-system regulation, and human suffering
  • The Hidden Ideology Shaping What We Eat
    Melanie Joy, founding president of Beyond Carnism, unpacks carnism as an invisible ideology that shapes how people relate to animals, violence, and empathy.
  • How Can We Harness AI for Collective Flourishing?
    In this episode, we explore how AI is a world-shaping force that could radically expand human possibilities. It may also destabilize labor, governance, and social cohesion if we’re not careful.
  • Hans Hageman Podcast Banner
    Anti-Fragility Amidst Broken Systems
    Hans Hageman on raising youth leaders: restoring agency, dignity, and direction in people who have been neglected.
  • Bruce Friedrich Solutionary Voices banner
    Meat Without Slaughter
    Bruce Friedrich on factory farming and how we can make positive systems change with alternative meats.
  • Sherry Rais Solutionary Voices banner
    Can Workplaces Help Us Heal?
    Sherry Rais on the benefits of alternative therapies like ketamine-assisted therapy and making mental health treatments accessible for all.
  • Steve Cochrane Solutionary Voices banner
    Rethinking the Purpose of School
    Steve Cochrane on how the education system is out of alignment with what students and societies need, and how we can rethink the purpose of school.

Steve Cochrane

“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.