Humane Education: Teaching Kindness, Deterring Cruelty

What It Is

What It’s Not

Getting Started

To recognize the gravity of animal cruelty is to realize the importance of humane education.

Children who act violently toward animals, without intervention to learn to behave differently, may not develop healthy, empathetic dispositions toward any life—be it plant, animal or human. These children may ultimately become a danger to our society. Thankfully, caring individuals of any background or profession can use humane education to help deter and prevent animal cruelty. This is especially important for children and young adults who are still developing attitudes and behaviors that they will carry into adulthood.

What It Is                                                                                                     Back to Top

Humane education comes by many definitions. Some people think of it as empathy education, or even as a combination of character education and current events. No matter which name it goes by, quality humane education provides children opportunities to explore, apply, and adopt virtues such as empathy, kindness, respect, and responsibility toward living beings. For many young people, humane education is a valuable source of positive role modeling, while for others, it reaffirms and expands upon kindness they already practice.

The National Humane Education Society (NHES), whose founding mission is to “foster a sentiment of kindness to animals in children and adults,” defines humane education as:

Teaching people how to accept and fulfill their responsibility to companion animals, such as cats and dogs, and to all forms of animal life. It explains the consequences of irresponsible behavior and encourages people to see the value of all living things…encouraging a deeper consideration of the humane choices available to us in our daily lives—from consumer products to entertainment to food—ultimately will help lessen animal suffering and create a more peaceful world.

What It's Not                                                                                                Back to Top

While humane education seeks to promote and foster positive behavior toward life, it is important to remember that humane education is not about indoctrinating a belief system or imposing value or moral systems. This approach will not authentically inspire exploration and transformation of personal beliefs; in fact, imposing a belief system may only serve to alienate children and adults who feel differently.

As many of us have experienced, the best learning takes place in a safe, non-judgmental environment. Share your beliefs and use humane education to lead children toward compassionate choices, but welcome and respect the differing viewpoints that will surely arise on the journey.

Getting Started                                                                                            Back to Top

There are so many great methods to provide humane education that we simply could not cover them all here! But, whether you are in a classroom on a daily basis or a visiting guest presenter somewhere, here a few general tips for developing your program:

• Educate yourself about the root causes of animal cruelty and the ways children learn to be cruel or kind. It is very easy to believe that children who act cruel are inherently mean; however, this is arguably never the case.

• Always be a positive role-model of empathetic and responsible behaviors. We must “walk the talk” if we expect those we teach to do so too.

• Be familiar with the many plights that animals face, and with this knowledge, choose educational materials that do not devalue animals or promote implicit cruelties. For instance, avoid reading books with children that present animals as commodities.

• Challenge young people to question societal attitudes and behaviors toward animals.  Children of all ages are influenced by adult behaviors, yet are quick to recognize hypocrisies—provide them the opportunities to explore these conflicts.

• Make connections to the natural world and provide young people joyful opportunities to interact with and care for plants, companion animals, and even small bugs.

• Plan group activities in which children can actively help animals! Young people want to make a positive difference in the world—let us always encourage them.

• Seek out and create daily, concrete opportunities to practice empathy, kindness, respect, and responsibility. We live in a violent world and so do our children—it is simply not enough to teach kindness every now and again.

Updated September 2009                                                                               Back to Top

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