The U.S. organization TeachHeart believes that humane education should be part of every child’s education. It has developed programs and teaching tools that foster empathy, critical thinking, ethical decision-making, and compassionate action for animals, people, and the environment.
The programs and teaching materials were originally developed for use in American pre-kindergarten to 12th grade schools. We had been aware of some of those materials but had not tried to use them in our Teaching Children Compassion program because they were available only in English.
Kristina Hulvershorn, TeachHeart’s program director, recently contacted us and offered to share their lesson series on companion animals, which have been translated into Spanish for a large-scale teacher training program in Puerto Rico.
The materials complement ones we’ve developed ourselves and received from other humane educators for our Teaching Compassion program. They will expand our toolbox for working with children of various ages. Most of our activities occur during the summer, when public schools are out of session.
Some of our teaching occurs at our sterilization campaigns, when parents bring their children to the campaigns. Because of the frequently large number of cases at campaigns, people must sometimes wait several hours for their pets to be sterilized. While they wait, many children and their parents become willing captive audiences.
As Kristina explained to us, TeachHeart’s lesson series was created with the knowledge that young people can be important ambassadors for animals by helping to bring important knowledge about them into households and communities. Teenagers involved in youth changemaker clubs fostered by TeachHeart are encouraged to set their own goals and develop their own teaching programs.
For example, many pets are given up to shelters because of behavioral problems. Members of one U.S. club developed a pamphlet designed to help pet owners change their pets’ behavior. Copies of the pamphlet were given to shelters in the hope of persuading pet owners to give their pets another chance.
The concept of changemaker clubs can be adapted to existing youth organizations in Mexico, which are especially active during the summer months. In addition, high school and university students are required to perform a certain number of hours of community service before graduating. From time to time, some of them have approached us to offer their help. We plan to make the TeachHeart materials available to older students who are interested in encouraging compassionate behavior toward animals among youngsters.
Our sincere thanks to Kristina and her organization for sharing their materials with us.