Please help us develop this page! This is always a work in progress. Ideas and feedback are welcome. Our Sentientism FaceBook group has a dedicated Sentientist Education chat that you’d be welcome to join too.

What would a Sentientist education system look like – committed to “evidence, reason and compassion for all sentient beings”?

• It would be child centred – out of compassion for children as sentient beings. All children would have rich educational opportunities (learning, developing skills, exploring, creating, understanding and caring for others, building community, being inspired) whereas today hundreds of millions of children don’t have the chance to go to school at all
• Naturalistic epistemology would be infused into all subjects (teach about good quality evidence & reasoning in science and humanities classes – don’t just assume or bypass it)
• Sentiocentric moral scope would be infused into all subjects (why just be human-centric – why not a sentiocentric history, geography, economics, politics, arts?)
• Sentientism would be taught as a worldview alongside other worldviews (religious and not), whether in civics, philosophy or religions, values and worldviews subjects.

Resources

Sentientism Resources:

• Sentientism section in RE Today’s “Investigating Non-Religious Worldviews” (see pdf below)

• Teaching the Sentientism Worldview – webinar recording (video and audio)
• VinE materials on Sentience and Sentientism (Secondary / senior school ages)
• Sentientism School Speakers (UK so far – look for “Sentientism”)
• Model Sentientist School Charter (not yet developed – input/ideas/drafts welcome!)

Resources (school/university speakers, videos, teaching materials…) relating to sentiocentric compassion and its implications:

• Institute for Humane Education
• Veganism in Education (VinE)
• Vegan Society’s “Vegan Inclusive Education“
• Animal Aid’s Education Resources
• Animal Ethics and Sustainability Leadership at Huron University. The world’s first major in this space led by Dr. Kendra Coulter (see our conversation in Sentientism episode 178)
• New Roots Institute offers virtual and in-person lessons about the impacts of industrial animal agriculture across the USA at both high schools and colleges
• Animal Law Documentary Series – targeting secondary and post-secondary students. Free videos with accomanying eductator guides
• Stories We Live By – resources and a free online course in ecolinguistics. Studying and improving the stories that shape and are shaped by our beliefs and values
• Mensch Tier’s Farmed Animal Ethics workshops (Germany).

Resources (school speakers, videos, teaching materials…) relating to naturalistic epistemology:

• Institute for Humane Education – Solutionary thinking
• Humanists UK Education Resources
• National Secular Society‘s teacher resources on Exploring Secularism (UK)
• Philosophy for Children (P4C)
• Humanistic Life Studies (Germany) – activists are working to upgrade this towards Sentientist Life Studies
• The ALICE Project (Animals, Climate and Civic Education) (Germany, France and Austria – EU funded) – including a podcast and a graphic novel

So far it’s rare for any single institution to address both “evidence and reason” and “compassion for all sentient beings” but the Institute for Humane Education is a wonderful exception. See my podcast conversations with Zoe Weil and Mary Pat Champeau. Look out for Zoe’s book “The Solutionary Way” too.

You may also find the Ethical Schools podcast and The RE Podcast (includes non-religious worldviews too!) interesting listens as they often touch on related themes.

Actions students might want to consider:

• Asking their school or university to sign the Plant-Based Treaty or to become a Plant-Based School or University (this link is Animal Rising’s Plant-Based Universities page but a schools campaign is being launched)
• Transition their catering and other purchasing to be plant-based. See the work of Plant Based School Kitchens and their pilot project with The Our Lady of Sion School (UK)
• Reviewing their school curriculum, policies and activities to reduce exclusionary ethics, including anthropocentrism (see Janae Dimick’s analysis of the representation of farmed animals as an example)
• Adapting their curriculum to incorporate Sentientism’s “evidence, reason and compassion for all sentient beings”.