What is Humane Education?

Humane Education affects us all.

In simple terms, humane education is a practice that encourages human beings, like each of us, to understand the urgency of learning to live with compassion, kindness and accountability for our choices and decisions.

We chose the word “practice” because you must practice it over and over to truly understand why it is so important to the future of the human race, animals and our physical environment.

Every life is touched by humane education in some way every day. It teaches us to live with respect, reverence and responsibility for the daily decisions and choices we make about the foods we eat, the clothes we wear and the “stuff” we fill our lives with each day.

It teaches us how our choices affect the world around us, from other human beings, to animals to the Earth we walk upon. It teaches us to understand the inter-dependency of all living things. It teaches us to make decisions and choices that will do the most good and the least harm for the most people.

Humane education teaches us to appreciate and support the ideologies of diversity and social justice and to grow in our responsibility as world citizens. Through humane education, we learn to expand our curiosity, creativity and critical thinking skills.

Everything that humane education is about motivates us to discover new and appropriate solutions to the challenges we all face daily. It encourages us to find new ways to effectively work together to solve the pressing issues in our homes, communities, towns, cities and the world at large.

Now that you learned what humane education is all about, we hope that this knowledge has sparked a desire to learn more about it. Check out our page, “How Do We Teach Humane Education?” to learn about how we interact with the next generation.