Why Is Humane Education Important and Why Should We Use It?

By Dr. Kathleen Tate  |  07/29/2025

I have written several online, blog, and journal articles about humane education. For these articles, I have followed the definition provided by the Institute for Humane Education (IHE), which says that humane education is a “field of study that draws connections between human rights, animal protection, and environmental sustainability.”

The idea is to prepare people to be solutionaries. Solutionaries can identify and address issues associated with humans, animals, and the environment; they can offer solutions that not only help to simply solve problems, but to also eliminate them.

What Is a Solutionary?

IHE co-founder Zoe Weil provides a useful definition of a solutionary. According to Weil, a solutionary is “someone who identifies inhumane, unjust, and unsustainable societal systems and then develops solutions to transform them so that they do the most good and least harm for people, animals, and the environment.” The goal is to be solution-oriented in deep ways and avoid applying simplistic approaches that perpetuate system problems.

Why Should We Care about Humane Education Programs?

Let’s think about humane education in K-12 schools, as well as in higher education and other contexts. Due to advances in technology in the last few decades, more is understood about the brain and learning, such as the importance of brain-compatible learning, relevancy, and emotional connections as the brain seeks to make meaning every second.

Teaching language arts, science, math, social studies, health, and other subjects in K-12 classrooms in the traditional, disconnected, and disjointed ways is not ideal for learning, especially if there is no relevancy and purpose. Similarly, in higher education, teaching in more interdisciplinary ways and using more personalized learning help learners to make deeper and broader connections.

The Advantages of Humane Education

Creating humane education programs offers several benefits, including:

• Better learning
• A framework for important skill development
• Versatility –humane education can be applied to various fields and disciplines

Better Learning

Integrating more purposeful learning through a humane education lens helps to further contextualize learning and provide relevance across subject/content areas and fields. Teaching in a more interdisciplinary, thematic manner with both state curriculum and humane education content is more meaningful.

Also, humane education not only fosters wonder and engages students better, but it also helps their brains to learn more effectively. They make stronger connections to concepts and skills in the various subject areas that they study.

A Framework for Important Skill Development

Humane education provides a great framework – or lens – for teaching in more interconnected ways. It can help with various skills that young learners need to master, including:

• Emotional development
• Personal development
• Problem solving
• Creative thinking

The IHE explains that humane education “helps students put core values of kindness, empathy, generosity, responsibility, and integrity into practice and better prepares them to enter into a complex, globalized world as compassionate leaders and problem solvers rather than competitors.”

This view of humane education goes beyond the more basic mission of education according to the U.S. Department of Education, which is to “promote student achievement and preparation for global competitiveness by fostering educational excellence and ensuring equal access.”

Humane education emphasizes doing more than what education seeks to accomplish typically and doing better, especially when it comes to teaching children.

The Versatility of Humane Education

Humane education is versatile and can be applied to various fields and disciplines. Implementing humane education with learners at the elementary school level and applying humane education to middle and high school curriculums will help to prepare new generations to change their personal beliefs and care about their world. They will build compassion in ways that motivate them to address pressing issues related to animals, the natural environment, and humanity.

Applying Humane Education to Animals

Kids of all ages tend to be interested in and captivated by animals. When an instructor uses humane education methods, learners may examine animal welfare or animal cruelty, depending on the age range or grade level.

Topics should be age-appropriate. Young children should be made aware of issues where lesson activities promote their problem-solving and solutionary skills.

A review of research on animal sentience indicates there tends to be a focus on the negative emotions of animals. With younger learners, it would be better to first focus on animals’ positive emotions and the knowledge that animals are sentient beings. One educational goal using lessons that focus on animals and issues they face in the world could be how to foster respect and compassion for life.

Applying Humane Education to the Environment

Learners may have different connections to the natural world, depending on their interests, travels, and hobbies. Studying animals as well as animal challenges and solutions can lead to examining nature, landforms, geography, terrains, climates, climate change, and ecology.

Being aware of the natural world and the effects that human beings may have on it, whether positive or negative, is essential to incorporate into classroom activities. Understanding the interconnectedness of land, air, water, humans, and animals should be emphasized during lesson activities and aligns well with Next Generation Science Standards.

Applying Humane Education to Humans

Another broad area of focus in humane education is humanity. Various topics related to human issues and solutions can be addressed in K-12 classrooms, such as:

• Anti-bullying
• Human rights
• Social justice
• Kindness
• Social responsibility

Anti-bullying and strategies for avoiding cyberbullying should start in elementary school and be reinforced across grade levels to help students develop empathy. This type of education helps to prepare learners with professional skills, as workplace bullying is not tolerated and leads to discipline and even termination.

Learning to research issues such as poverty, the right to vote, freedom of speech, and other social problems helps bring public awareness to social issues. Humane educators can also motivate students to investigate and find solutions to social problems.

Integrating acts of kindness into classroom reward systems, readings, social studies lessons, and school-wide systems can lead to positive results regarding learners’ interactions at school and in the community.

For instance, students and teachers may consider starting a kindness club. Learners of any age can focus on positive acts of kindness year-round at the local, regional, national, or global level, depending on their interests.

In the sciences, learners should work on acquiring knowledge and becoming scientifically literate citizens to help them to make better decisions. For instance, learners can be taught about the intersection of law, government, science, engineering, and technology.

They can learn how important it is to research the land impact issues of building a bridge or exit for a roadway and how to exercise the right to vote for or against it in an informed manner. Students throughout an entire school can and should participate in such studies.

How to Make Humane Education Appropriate for Different Ages

There are various ways to make humane education age-appropriate. For instance, children, adolescents, and teens may take steps to solve system problems.

Young children at early elementary grade levels should not examine animal abuse issues regarding pets, farm animals, laboratory animal testing, or research on animals with extensive depth and breadth. This information may be too scary for them to process.

However, they may certainly start learning about basic information about topics such as:

• The overpopulation of pets
• Techniques for preventing animal abuse as well as helping pets and animals in humane societies and sanctuaries
• Strategies for how to take legislative action for endangered animals

Humane Education Involves Taking Action Within and Beyond the Classroom

There are many options for learners to take action to help others at school, in their neighborhood, or at a distance. A classroom of learners should have choices within larger topics and issues. They may form smaller groups to work on issues and solutions that they are most passionate about within the context of the overarching lesson, concepts, and skills being taught by instructors.

Taking Action to Help Animals

Children may explore data about pets that need local homes, endangered animals across the country or globe, and so on. They may also:

• Create animal awareness posters for the school or community
• Conduct fundraisers for supplies for humane societies
• Write emails or letters to endangered species organizations, such as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service or Defenders of Wildlife
• Write letters to legislators about creating or preserving policies and bills to protect animals and their environments

Larger projects that improve students’ critical thinking skills and an awareness of the challenges facing animals and help them solve some systemic issues are ideal teaching tools.

Taking Action for the Environment

Students might work with community experts to create school and community gardens, which involve topics such as science and health. Through these projects, they can learn how to help feed the local neighborhood and transform land.

For a science class, students may learn about watersheds and their connection to the natural world. Similarly, they can use a math class and work with local agencies to monitor data involving nearby watersheds. They could also plant trees or take other action steps to improve the health of ecosystems.

Taking Action to Help Humans and Improving Skill Development in Different Subjects

Teachers can use humane education to create lesson plans designed to help other people. These lesson plans can include projects such as collecting shoes, clothes, or food for people in areas of need, including the victims of weather catastrophes.

The lessons could incorporate different subject areas, such as:

• Science – improving students' environmental education by helping them to learn about weather, environments, ecosystems, biology, geography, species, and climates or to collect scientific data
• Math – tracking contributions and analyzing data
• Language arts – conducting research; writing reports, letters, and emails; and communicating with community partners
• Creative arts – creating posters, blogs, and school news shows

In addition, social studies classes could involve raising community awareness regarding how state and federal legislation does or does not support easy processes for people to receive what they need. However, sensitivity should be used in situations where students are experiencing their own social issues such as a lack of appropriate clothing or food scarcity.

Similarly, social studies classes could involve teaching empathy and inspiring students of all ages to start anti-bullying campaigns and committees. Instructors could connect their learning to current and historical human rights.

Students could also use their language arts, creative arts, or math classes to:

• Draw upon various skillsets and create anti-bullying posters and newspaper articles
• Form conflict resolution peer committees and collaboratively engage with other children
• Develop puppet shows or skits to teach about the harmful bullying and ways to stop it
• Learn about and track statistics about bullying

For language arts classes, students of all ages may want to address literacy issues by collecting books for the community. Any individual, small group, or class can work with community members to create a storage space for books, providing opportunities for anyone to take a book to read, put the book back when finished, and donate books when possible.

Having easy access to reading material may help to motivate students to read more after school and year-round. Children will have more opportunities to read various types of books and formats, depending on what is shared.

For instance, teachers may consider using the Little Free Library website or app to get started with this type of project. With a resurgence of middle and high school students taking shop classes, students can construct a book box, cabinet, or storage bench along with the aid of volunteer businesses and parents. Students may learn data skills tracking donated books and  improve their own literacy.

Students can use information literacy skills and digital literacy skills to study topics that meet the goals of a school’s educational programs. They can then apply their new knowledge and critical thinking skills to address local or global challenges; this themed, integrated, and meaningful approach will better engage learners.

Young people need time and opportunity to study complex issues, seek accurate information, and study various resources. Ideally, they should think about the future of our planet in hopeful, empowering ways, so that they can make compassionate and responsible choices in the future.

Humane Education Starts with Teachers Learning to Become Humane Educators

Educators might need to shift their mindsets as they gain knowledge about social responsibility and set up lessons and activities to incorporate topics related to animals, humans, and the environment. For humane educators, the IHE recommends thinking globally and acting locally. That is a great starting point, though students can certainly take action steps at the national or global level, depending on their passions and interests.

Teachers must view their education systems differently and connect subjects across curriculum areas. By shifting from traditional lesson plans to more interdisciplinary lesson and unit plans with humane education, they improve their chances of engaging students in more meaningful learning experiences that lead to transformative action within a local or global community.

Supporting students in thinking about the future in more compassionate ways can help them use creativity to develop strong solutions for future generations. Through humane education, today's youth should be provided with new, authentic experiences that allow their schoolwork to lead to action within and outside of the classroom.

The Bachelor’s Degree in Human Development and Family Studies at APU

For adult learners seeking to incorporate humane education into classrooms, American Public University (APU) offers an online Bachelor of Arts in Human Development and Family Studies. This degree program involves courses such as infant-toddler development, an introduction to psychology, child and adolescent development, and research methods for sociology.

This degree program offers a general concentration with courses designed to suit students’ professional goals. Learners may also choose from multiple general education courses such as “Humane Education: A Global, Interdisciplinary Perspective” and “Introduction to Environmental Science.”

For more details about this bachelor’s degree, visit APU’s degree program page.

Note: This program does not award professional licensure and does not qualify you to apply for teaching licensure. This program may be helpful in preparing to earn certain professional certifications.

Also, individual states/professional organizations often require additional hands-on training, internships, or site visits not provided by our University. It is your responsibility to become familiar with all licensure/certification requirements in the state in which you plan to seek employment or from the certification body.