The Maine resident and visionary behind the first-ever graduate program in humane education, whose methods are being used by teachers and students around the globe, says comedy can help us become better problem solvers.

Zoe Weil begins her latest book, “The Solutionary Way: Transform Your Life, Your Community, and the World for the Better,” by exploring the principles of improv comedy and how they relate to the solutionary mindset.

Book details

Courtesy of the Institute for Humane Education

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“The Solutionary Way”
By Zoe Weil
New Society Publishers
$22.99

“I’m a huge fan of this art form, not only because I often find it hilarious, but also because it offers meaningful life lessons along with wise approaches to budding solutionaries,” writes Weil, author of seven other books and the founder of the Institute for Humane Education in Surry.

“Solutionary” is a term Weil coined to describe a person who seeks to solve systemic problems in a way that does “the most good and least harm for people, animals, and the environment.” It can also be an adjective used to describe such solutions.

A distinguishing feature of solutionary thinking is the inclusion of animals in its ethical equation.

“Instead of getting pushback on this,” Weil told me when we recently spoke by phone, “we’re finding most people are really excited because (concern for animals) is missing from many of the other change-making efforts and approaches. If we were to say, ‘This means you need to make X, Y or Z choices,’ then we would get a lot of people who would reject this.”

But “The Solutionary Way” doesn’t prescribe particular actions, instead it offers a framework of how to think about problems, investigate potential solutions and evaluate which solutions to implement.

In addition to working with school districts across the country and around the world (including schools in Mexico and Kenya), the Institute for Humane Education has partnered with a number of schools in Maine, including Deering High School, Lyman Moore Middle School, Falmouth Middle School and Blue Hill Consolidated School.

Founded in 1996, the Institute for Humane Education offers masters and doctoral degrees, along with other programs, through its affiliation with Antioch University. Weil has delivered a number of TEDx talks, including “The World Become What You Teach.” This past December, Weil delivered the keynote address at the annual conference of the the National Council for Social Studies.

But Weil’s book speaks to a much wider audience. “The Solutionary Way” functions as a handbook for activists wanting to hone their skill set right now. “We cannot wait for the 5th-graders and other young people who are trained solutionaries to grow up and transform the systems that are unsustainable and inhumane.”

Instead, we need adults to take action now, Weil says.

Zoe Weil Courtesy of the Institute for Humane Education

“I wrote this book to get everyone on board, including leaders in various industries – law, healthcare, architecture,” Weil said. “We cannot wait for the problems to become so severe that some are catastrophic.”

One systemic problem the book addresses is the tendency to simplify issues by viewing them through the lens of either-or and us-versus-them thinking. Such framing reduces complex problems to false binaries that fail to capture the true scope of issues, she writes.

“Either/or thinking is so embedded in U.S. culture that it shows up in most of our systems, especially in our political, media, economic, legal, criminal justice, and even our education system,” she writes. “In the U.S. we have only two viable political parties … Yet it’s silly to think there are just two ways of thinking about every issue or problem.”

Weil writes that humanitarian and solutionary actions are not the same. She points out that humanitarian efforts, such as providing food to the hungry and cleaning trash from a beach, while very much needed, seek to “alleviate the symptoms and impacts of an underlying problem” rather than solving the underlying problem, as solutionary actions do.

Embracing an improv comedy perspective can help to develop a solutionary mindset, according to Weil.

“What can I say “yes” to and then add to it?” Weil asks, illustrating the “yes, and” format of improv comedy, which also seeks to “bring the love” and “help others shine.” “We need to resist the tendency to bring hate, blame and judgement and bring good faith appreciation for others’ perspectives.”

Weil’s book has been praised by well-known people in a number of fields, from musician Moby to John Robbins, author of “Diet for a New America” to Irshad Manji, founder of the Moral Courage College. Conservationist and zoologist Jane Goodall wrote the book’s foreword.

“I am convinced that we must address the critical issues that this book highlights,” Goodall writes, “such as the need for humane and environmentally responsible production of food, voting rights for all, and alternatives to animal testing for biomedical and other forms of research. There are dire problems facing us in all these areas and many more, but despite the challenges, we must not lose hope … That is why the message in ‘The Solutionary Way’ is so important.”

Avery Yale Kamila is a food writer who lives in Portland. She can be reached at avery.kamila@gmail.com.