solutionary

If You Want to Create Change, Focus on Systems

Zoe is a blogger for Psychology Today (PT), and each week we’ll be sharing her PT blog posts here. Enjoy! I became a humane educator more than 30 years ago, teaching about interconnected environmental, human rights, and animal protection issues in order to inspire deeper empathy, better critical thinking, and more ethical behavior among my students….

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Blog: Kim Korona

Humane Education in Action: A Conversation with Solutionary and IHE Alumna – Kim Korona

Kim Korona is a graduate of IHE’s M.Ed. program and serves as the Senior Program Director at HEART, a non-profit education organization. In addition to being an extraordinary humane educator in the classroom, Kim develops curricula and educational resources that promote compassion, critical thinking, and empowerment through topics related to animal protection, environmental ethics, and…

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Empathy + Thinking banner image

Empathy + Thinking = Wise Action

Most people consider empathy—the ability to share and understand the feelings of others —a good thing. Teachers often reach out to us at the Institute for Humane Education for help educating their students to be more empathetic. They recognize that academic education isn’t enough to produce healthy classrooms, let alone to prepare youth to be motivated and engaged citizens who…

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becoming a solutionary

How Evolution Can Help Us Solve Problems: A Conversation with Michael Charles Tobias and Jane Gray Morrison

For my post today, I interviewed Michael Charles Tobias and Jane Gray Morrison about their book, The Hypothetical Species, and their vision of a path toward a restorative future. Michael and Jane run the Dancing Star Foundation, an ecological non-profit devoted to animal protection, biodiversity conservation, and environmental education. For over thirty years they have researched and analyzed…

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Person throwing a box of food into a compost dumpster

17 Resources for Teaching About Food Waste

by Marsha Rakestraw “Every day, we’re teaching kids that food is trash.” ~ Jonathan Bloom Our school food systems in the US are not set up to minimize waste or encourage healthy habits. Students are often rushed at lunchtime, may have unappetizing food options, may be given (or take) much more food than they’ll eat,…

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Blog: Cultivating header

9 Strategies for Cultivating Empathy and Compassion in Your Classroom

by Marsha Rakestraw To create a just, compassionate, sustainable world for all – and to help our students become solutionaries — it’s vital that we help them (and ourselves) build empathy and compassion for people, animals, and the earth. We humans are wired to care about those with whom we have close relationships (our family,…

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16 Children's Books about refugees

16 Children’s Picture Books About Refugees

by Marsha Rakestraw As war, climate change, persecution, and hunger challenges escalate, the number of refugees worldwide, and the challenges facing them and their host countries, continue to grow. And while we adults struggle with what to do and how (or whether) to help, many children may also be seeking understanding and wanting some answers….

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