As you may know, there’s been a spike in violence in schools since the beginning of the pandemic. By incorporating humane education, schools have an opportunity to reach students before they start to engage in violent behavior. For 20 years, TeachKind has been working with schools across the U.S. to promote compassion for animals through free lessons, virtual classroom presentations, materials, advice, online resources, and more. If you value our work, please consider sharing our materials with family, friends, and colleagues. Whether you’re a teacher, a paraprofessional in a school, a parent, or another caring member of your community, here are a few examples of easy things you can do to help promote this important message of practicing kindness to all:
1. Post about TeachKind’s signature programs “Share the World” and “Challenging Assumptions” in your local teacher Facebook group or other online community. “Share the World” is the perfect tool for teaching young students the Golden Rule as well as the importance of compassion and empathy. Challenging Assumptions is our secondary school curriculum designed to encourage empathy toward others regardless of species, race, gender, sexual identity, age, or ability.
2. Invite your friends to follow TeachKind on Instagram. Here you’ll find giveaways, teacher hacks, feel-good content, videos, and more.
3. Shop our Teachers Pay Teachers store (where everything is free). We offer resources—including classroom posters, worksheets, and activities—for every grade level.
4. Order a free set of our comic books to donate to your local library. Our comic books are colorful and fun to read, include activities, and work well to motivate reluctant readers. We also have various games that go along with them, like our Inference Task Cards and our “Main Idea” Sorting Game.
5. Download extra copies of our printable materials to share with teachers on your team. Our very popular rescue stories have been used in a study in which students who received humane education–themed reading passages achieved scores significantly better than those of students who received passages about other themes on questions addressing specific Common Core Reading for Information standards.
6. Order our free materials, and give some to a colleague. The primary school kit (K–5) includes four comic books, activity booklets, magazines, and a sticker sheet. The secondary school kit (6–12) includes our “Guide to Going Vegan,” sticker sheets, and leaflets about dissection, animal circuses, animal testing, and the environment.
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We’ve made lots of progress in our 20-year history, but we need your help to continue to get humane education into classrooms. The recent gun tragedies in U.S. schools and communities and the connections that the suspects—including Salvador Ramos, Payton Gendron, Nikolas Cruz, and Ethan Crumbley—have to violence to animals prove that it’s as important as ever to push for humane education in order to help prevent interpersonal violence. If you have any ideas on how you can share our materials, we’d love to hear from you! E-mail us at [email protected]. If you’d like to be inspired, get tips on teaching compassion for animals, and keep up to date on TeachKind’s work, sign up for our e-newsletter by filling out the form below:
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