Article - Humane Education and the Curriculum
Elizabeth Gredley
Exactly what humane education is can be very hard to pin down. Is it teaching responsible pet ownership? spay and neuter? kindness to animals?
Moral Education
In my opinion, humane education is moral education in its broadest sense. Bringing Up a Moral Child by Michael Schulman and Eva Mekler points out that morality has to do with our treatment of others. An action is in the moral domain if it affects other people, and a moral person is kind, fair and just. We are kind, fair and just to those we consider part of "us". Schulman and Mekler say that the key to raising a moral child is not only nurturing these three attributes, but also extending the concept of "us" to include people of other cultures.To me, humane education is about extending that concept even further to include nonhuman animals.
Humane Education in Schools
With humane education, we're trying to reach many different children, not just our own, and a good place to find groups of children is in school. When it comes to school programs, the first thing most of us think of is a representative of the humane society, probably a volunteer and his or her pet, visiting local elementary classrooms to talk about pet care and the importance of spay and neuter. However, humane education is not only about imparting knowledge, but more importantly about helping children form and act upon positive attitudes and values about human relationships with all life - extending the concept of "us."
Since we can't teach attitudes in one session, humane education should be part of the regular classroom curriculum, included by classroom teachers in their daily lessons and reinforced by the whole school community. In order to do that, school authorities and teachers must be convinced that humane education belongs. People are more likely to accept a new idea if they see how it fits into their existing framework of ideas, so the first step is to show that humane education dovetails nicely with what they are already teaching.
Integrating with the Curriculum
What are schools doing already? There are actually several different curricula. While officially, the provincial curriculum determines what is taught, in reality both text book publishers and the individual classroom teacher have a say. For example, the particular language arts series a school uses will affect the themes a teacher will pursue. Teachers develop their own teaching units, often based around personal interests or favourite resources.
Check the curriculum guides for your province, available from your Department of Education. Go through the curriculum guide looking for connections with humane education concepts. You'll find the general aims section probably talks about preparing good citizens and uses words we also use in the aims of humane education - fairness, respect, responsibility, empathy. Looking further into specific subjects, you'll see lots of places for humane education, particularly in language arts and social studies. A useful resource well worth the time it takes to create is a chart for teachers and school officials showing the curriculum links.Talking to teachers, visiting schools and touring the exhibit areas of teachers conventions will give you more ideas for integrating humane education into the everyday classroom.
Involving Teachers
Once teachers and schools accept the validity of humane education, they need access to effective, easy-to-use materials. Sometimes we can show them how to put a humane slant on things they are already using; other times we need to provide specialized humane education materials. As a start, every school and every humane educator should have a copy of David Selby's comprehensive book Earthkind (available from CFHS).
Finally, it helps to show teachers how to use those materials to the best advantage whether through formal workshops, one-on-one consultation with a humane educator or by facilitating networking among interested teachers.
Humane education belongs as part of the everyday classroom curriculum if we want to live in a society where people strive to be kind, fair and just in their dealings with each other, nonhuman animals and the earth itself. It is the base on which to build the rest of our work as humane societies and SPCAs.
