We believe humane education should be part of every child's learning experience.
We develop programs and teaching tools that foster empathy, critical thinking, ethical decision-making, and compassionate action for animals, people, and the environment.
We believe humane education should be part of every child's learning experience.
We develop programs and teaching tools that foster empathy, critical thinking, ethical decision-making, and compassionate action for animals, people, and the environment.
HEART is here to help during these difficult circumstances. We offer free humane education resources to help parents and teachers provide much-needed social and emotional support, along with home learning activities for Pre-K to 12 students.
Inspiring Youth Action
Through humane education, HEART harnesses young people’s natural fascination and affinity with animals as a foundation to build empathy for all beings and our shared environment. Our programs help children build social awareness, find their place within the broader community, and strengthen their academic and civic engagement as compassionate changemakers.
Empowering Educators
HEART provides teacher training and educational resources for traditional and nontraditional K-12 instructors in U.S. schools, youth organizations, summer camps, and community groups. By equipping educators with humane education tools, we empower them to provide children with the knowledge and skills they need to become informed, empathetic, and effective global citizens.
Catalyzing Humane Education
HEART takes a multipronged approach to increasing educator and student access to holistic humane education. One of our key strategies is infusing core humane education concepts into mainstream pedagogies, such as Social and Emotional Learning (SEL). We also advocate to strengthen and expand humane education laws in New York and beyond.
WITH YOUR HELP
We've taught compassion, respect and responsibility to more than 50,000 children nationwide.
Extending the Benefits of SEL
Social and Emotional Learning (SEL), which supports the development of the whole child, has been widely embraced across the education field. SEL has been instrumental in helping teachers address behavioral issues in the classroom.
However, SEL is not traditionally oriented toward social justice issues affecting animals, people, and the natural world. HEART believes that humane education can extend the benefits of SEL to the broader community, other species, and the planet at large.
Galvanized by SEL's potential to serve as an engine for positive social change, HEART has joined the Peace Learning Center and Tribes Learning Community to form the Transformative Learning Alliance.
The alliance recently released Everyday Circles, a groundbreaking toolkit of 180 activity cards that combine humane education and SEL. Each Everyday Circles card provides teachers with activities taking 20 minutes or less that can be easily used with their students every day of the school year.
Everyday Circles is designed to foster intentional community building and problem solving that become part of a daily practice. The cards are being used in a wide variety of settings nationwide, including public elementary schools and a domestic violence shelter program.
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Responding to Controversial Topics in the Classroom
Here are some suggested responses to common questions teachers may encounter as they introduce their students to important and, at times, contested resources and perspectives