04.04.07

Sowing Seeds Workshop in Atlanta

Posted in Social Justice, Animal Rights, LGBT, My Life, Activism, Humane Education at 5:35 pm by Freeman Wicklund

Name that brand! Here I am doing an ice-breaker activity for the analyzing ads lesson.

This Weekend (March 31-April 1, 2007), I was in Atlanta, facilitating a Sowing Seeds Workshop for the Institute for Humane Education. Most of the thirteen people who attended were classroom teachers, while others were church-affiliated educators, a student, or active volunteers for local nonprofits. They freely shared their knowledge, experience, and insights making this a wonderfully inspiring learning opportunity for all of us—especially me!

Workshop attendees were simply rivited!

How I got involved with Humane Education

My first exposure to humane education was over a decade ago when I attended a workshop led by Rae Sikora at a conference in Madison, Wisconsin. I was inspired by her positive energy and ability to talk about controversial issues in a spirit of love and compassion for everyone. How did she do that? Is this something I could learn? Where could I learn this?

That’s where IHE’s Sowing Seeds Workshops enter the picture. Not long after meeting Rae I attended my first Sowing Seeds Workshop. There I learned many secrets to effective communication. I also experienced numerous examples of classroom presentations and activities educators could use to teach about various issues such as consumerism, child labor, modern day slavery, sweatshops, racism, sexism, heterosexism, animal rights, environmentalism, war, media literacy, and more. More importantly, it showed us how to empower students to take action and better our world. It was wonderful!

What? Have you never seen an alien before? Me playing the alien Nagev while demonstrating the Alien in the Ethical Universe lesson. Don’t ever say I take myself too seriously.

Humane Education Pedagogy

I love the concept of humane education. It seeks to cultivate constructive conversations about the problems in the world so that collectively and individually we can develop creative and positive solutions to them. It challenges us all to understand, appreciate, and live our values so we may create a more just, sustainable, and peaceful world.

What humane education does not do is seek to tell people how to live. It does not seek to shame, blame, or guilt people into behaving a certain way. It does not require anyone to adopt certain values, beliefs, or behaviors. Rather, it asks people to consider the deeply held values that they already have, and apply them actively to the world’s problems.

It is this gentle approach to changing the world and making people think that distinguish humane educators as educators and not activists. Interestingly enough, the longer I have worked as a humane educator, the more I appreciate this loving approach to reform, and the more my activism has changed accordingly.

How does one teach humane education? Zoe Weil believes that all humane education requires these four elements:

• Providing accurate information on the issues.

• Fostering the three Cs: Creativity, Curiosity, and Critical Thinking.

• Cultivating the three Rs: Respect, Reverence and Responsibility.

• Sharing positive choices that help empower students.

Like environmental education and character education before it, humane education is an important discipline of learning it its own right. Already, some schools have added courses in humane education and humane education charter schools have been created. Through awareness and promotion, we can hopefully see humane education become part of the core curriculum in all levels of education.

If you would like to experience humane education for yourself, I’m facilitating the next Sowing Seeds Workshop in Carlsbad, California on April 28-29. Please consider attending.

Billie (left) plays Thoreau while Susie plays Mother Earth in this humerous role play activity.

Thanks to All Who Attended the Atlanta Workshop!

Thank you to all of the wonderful people who participated in this last Sowing Seeds Workshop! Please make a comment below or drop me a line and let me know how you are integrating humane education into your teaching, advocacy work, and daily life.

Here are the documents and information I promised to post on my site so you could access them:

• Thoreau and Mother Earth Dialogue: A though-provoking and humorous discussion about law care that will serve as a great an ice-breaker for discussions on organic gardening, backyard habitats, and yard maintenance.

• Teaching Gay and Lesbian Issues in the Classroom: A lesson plan for middle school teachers.

• Speaker Request Form: This is the form I used while serving as Humane Educator for Bridges of Respect. It helped me make sure I had all the information necessary to best serve them and their students, and made sure I said all of the important things so they knew what to expect.

• More Photos: I have set up an image gallery on my Web site so you can access the pictures we took at the workshop. Enjoy!

• An Example of Effective Communication: This is an example of effective communication that I forgot to share with you. I think you will enjoy, so I have posted it here.

Finally I want to thank the nice people at Outwrite Bookstore and Cafe who provided me friendly service and a nice “office” for me to work at while in Atlanta. Thanks!

Yay, for Outwrite Bookstore and Cafe! Their employees are lots of fun.

This text was written in 2007 by Freeman Wicklund of FreemanWicklund.org, and it may be freely reprinted or distributed in any e-zine, e-mail, newsletter or blog as long as this sentence and Web link are included.

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