Florida State Humane Education Curriculum

Humane Education examines the challenges facing our planet, from human oppression and animal exploitation to materialism and ecological degradation. It explores how we might live with compassion and respect for everyone: not just our friends and neighbors, but all people; not just our own dogs and cats, but all animals; not just our own homes, but also the earth itself, our ultimate home.

According to Florida State Statute, the public school system has a responsibility to instill respect for all animals and an appreciation of each child%u2019s connection to the natural world.  Humane education examines the challenges facing our planet, from human oppression and animal exploitation to materialism and ecological degradation. It explores how we might live with compassion and respect for everyone: not just our friends and neighbors, but all people; not just our own dogs and cats, but all animals; not just our own homes, but also the earth itself, our ultimate home.

Statutory Law: The 2009 Florida Statute Title XXVII, Part IV, Chapter 1003.42 explicitly prescribes that the public school curriculum for grades K-12 is required to include:

(k) kindness to animals; and,

(s)  Each district school board shall develop or adopt a curriculum for the character-development program that shall be submitted to the department for approval. The character-development curriculum shall stress the qualities of patriotism; responsibility; citizenship; kindness; respect for authority, life, liberty, and personal property; honesty; charity; self-control; racial, ethnic, and religious tolerance; and cooperation.

It%u2019s time to make living ethically, sustainably, and peaceably on this planet the very purpose of education.

Humane Education includes four elements:

1. Providing accurate information about the issues of our time so that people have the information they need to understand the consequences of their decisions as citizens.
2. Fostering curiosity, creativity, and critical thinking, so that people can evaluate information and solve problems.
3. Instilling reverence, respect, and responsibility, so that people have the motivation to face challenges and to act with integrity
4. Offering positive choices that benefit oneself, other people, the animals, and the Earth, so that people are empowered to create a more humane world.

We, the undersigned, are confident that as Commissioner of the Florida State Department of Education, the well-being of the children in your care is of paramount importance.  At this point in time, withholding Humane Education from students who need this information is tantamount to child abuse. We respectfully request that the Florida school system adopt a curriculum that not only adheres to the statutory requirements, cited in this petition, but also embraces the values of Humane Education -- the tenets of which our children are in dire need.  Like no generation before them, today%u2019s students are inheriting an environment that is imploding along with species extinction on an unprecedented scale.

Time is running out.  If our children have any hope of halting or rectifying the damage that previous generations have wrought on the environment and nature, we need to give them the knowledge that the public school system is effectively withholding and the tools to implement real change in their world.  This information is critical to survival:

Environmental Preservation:  Global climate change, rapidly decreasing biodiversity and growing extinction rates, dwindling resources, deforestation, worldwide overfishing, and pollution are serious and escalating threats. Environmental issues are inextricably linked to human rights, animal protection, and economic and political issues. For example, placing polluting industries in poor neighborhoods is both an environmental and social justice issue.

Animal Rights Issues:  What is illegal if done to a dog or parakeet may be perfectly legal when done to a cow or chicken. And while there are many laws protecting dogs and cats in peoples%u2019 homes, these laws do not apply to dogs, cats, or any other animals in laboratories. In other words, our relationships with animals are inconsistent, based upon our feelings, our traditions, and our habits, and not upon their inherent capacity to suffer or their intrinsic value.

Human Rights Issues:  Despite laws against it, slavery is actually on the rise, with tens of millions of people living as slaves around the world. Genocide plagues several continents, with no sign of abating. Starvation and preventable disease %u2013 the result of corruption, lack of education, global climate change, diminished resources, human overpopulation, and more %u2013 claim millions of lives  annually. Women, minorities, homosexuals, the disabled, and the underclass all over the globe still face prejudices and obstacles that prevent them from leading free, safe, and healthy lives.

Humane education not only instills the desire and capacity to live with compassion, integrity, and wisdom, but also provides the knowledge and tools to put our values into action in meaningful, far-reaching ways.  

Humane education enables us to find solutions that work for all by approaching human rights, environmental preservation, and animal protection as interconnected and integral dimensions of a healthy, just society. 

Certainly we owe them the information they need to live happy, healthy, productive lives in harmony with nature.