Humane Literacy and Formal Educators

Formal educators (those with formal education degrees versus informal educators who may work in shelters or nature centers) in the K-12 system are tasked with facilitating academic, character, and social and emotional learning in the classroom. As part of this learning, the teaching of critical thinking revolving around and reinforcement of “kindness... care and compassion towards ” people, animals, and the environment and the interconnection among the three can work to prevent needless suffering and create community building attitudes (Selby, 1995, p. 7). Based upon knowledge of state mandates involving humane education, the Humane Literacy Coalition (HLC) was formed to study basic educator knowledge of humane education and their understanding of mandates concerning humane topics. HLC was also formed to review the creation and potential use of humane education benchmarks on the part of formal educators. HLC hypothesized that educators were not aware of humane education nor whether humane education was required in their state. HLC also wished to learn the opinion of educators, administrators, and policy makers concerning the creation of benchmarks that would help educators to infuse humane education into standards-based work. Based on these assumption