Teaching for the 21st Century: Bringing Humane Education into the Classroom

How can we best prepare our students for the important roles they must play in meeting the challenges of today’s world, from global climate change, to uncertain economies, to hunger and poverty, to alarming rates of species extinction, to a looming energy crisis, to human trafficking, to institutionalized animal cruelty, and more? How can we help youth to become creative and critical thinkers who embody the qualities of wisdom, compassion, and integrity and who focus their great minds and deepest values on solving systemic problems in our increasingly interdependent world?
In this day-long workshop, offered through a collaboration between the Institute for Humane Education and HEART (Humane Education Advocates Reaching Teachers), educators will have the opportunity to explore the pressing issues of our time and assess the role of schooling to address them. Teachers will learn how to bring global ethical issues i nto the classroom through innovative activities and approaches that enable their students to become conscientious choicemakers and engaged changemakers for a more humane, peaceable, and healthy world.