How To Advocate for Animals as a Teacher: Using Your Work to Help End Factory Farming

Being a teacher is a demanding yet incredibly rewarding profession. You're tasked with educating young people and preparing them for the future, which involves substantial responsibility. From lesson planning and classroom management, to grading papers and managing classroom dynamics, you have to juggle numerous tasks daily.

But what if you could also inspire your students and fellow faculty members to become compassionate advocates? What if you could turn your compassion for animals into a snowball effect, sparking those around you to take action and create real change?

You are in the unique position to shape student minds and personalities. You can instill values from a young age that can evolve into lifelong principles, which can even benefit many others and make a significant positive difference in the world.

And, apart from your regular curricular activities, you also have the chance to use your profession to make an impact on your faculty, your school, and the broader education ecosystem.

If you are aware of the immense problems that animals face—such as the billions of animals raised and killed each year in factory farms—it has probably crossed your mind to help them somehow in your profession. As a teacher, you actually have a key power role that allows you to advocate for animals. You have the amazing chance to inspire your students to care about animals and take action, helping to create a kinder world—and you are also uniquely positioned to impact your school. Your position allows you to inspire the next generation to care about and take action for animal welfare, fostering a more compassionate generation.

Advocating for animals as a teacher may not seem easy, but remember that all actions can have an impact, both in the short and long term. You can take initiative with manageable small steps and then expand your animal advocacy activities to increase your impact over time.

It takes a bit of planning to integrate animal advocacy into your teaching if you have not advocated for animals before. However, it is well worth it as you have the great opportunity to extend your work beyond school knowledge to foster a new generation of compassionate and kind individuals. This can bring an immense sense of fulfillment as you can be responsible and credited not only for their academic education, but also for their accomplishments in improving animal welfare. Your students could end up advocating for animals throughout their lives, creating a positive and lasting impact on animal welfare and influencing many others as well.

Ready to make a difference?

In this article, we'll explore practical ways that you as a teacher can weave animal advocacy into your role, empower your students, change your institution, and help end factory farming faster.

About Connect For Animals

Connect For Animals is a nonprofit platform for people who want to help end factory farming. Animals raised and killed for food account for the vast majority of animals purposefully exploited by humans, and we believe that ending factory farming is one of the most important and urgent issues of our time.

We’re dedicated to helping people find their niche in the movement to end factory farming. You can get started by signing up here: https://connectforanimals.com/sign-up.

How To Get Started

There are many useful activities you can do as a teacher to advocate for animals. Depending on your time and willingness, there are numerous options to do so.

The foundation: teaching compassion and respect

One way to create compassion through education is to help students see animals as sentient beings, not objects for human use. Your approach can vary according to your students’ age so that they properly understand animals and how they can help them. Regardless of the age of your students, you can reinforce empathetic behavior towards animals through praise and positive recognition.

Very young students require age-appropriate lessons that point out similarities between humans and animals in terms of needing food, water, love, and care. It’s important to focus on treating animals with kindness. One practical way that this will show up in many students lives is through their interactions with companion animals who they live with at home, often dogs and cats.

Young children often know that other animals have feelings and can experience pain, just like humans do. You can reinforce this fact through messaging, like saying: "Just like you feel happy, sad, or scared, animals can feel those things too." Use analogies that children can easily understand, such as needing a bed to sleep in or enjoying a favorite food. You can ask questions, like asking your students to remember a time when they noticed another animal experiencing happiness or sadness.

Another key value to instill is respect towards all living beings, so that children understand that animals are not toys and should be treated according to their interests. If there are animals in the school, you could show children how to gently handle animals and take care of them. (It's important to not bring animals into school, though, if this would be a stressful or unwanted experience for the animal.) For most teachers, using stuffed animals to demonstrate with is probably more practical and ethical, as well as watching videos together of humans interacting with other animals in respectful ways.

Finally, you can teach the concept of boundaries, which is extremely important for our interactions with both humans and nonhumans. Just like humans, other animals have their own space and sometimes need to be left alone. Use examples the child can relate to, such as how they feel when they need some quiet time.

Addressing animal welfare issues

Talk about the impact of human actions when it comes to farmed animals, companion animals, and wildlife. Inform students about the state of farmed animals, as some of them might be totally unaware. And, you don't need to create your own materials, if you don't want—you can use resources from education-focused initiatives like New Roots Institute or PETA's TeachKind program.

Older students can be taught using a more nuanced approach that considers their cognitive and emotional development as part of their biology, science, ethics or social studies classes. Start by making sure they have understanding and empathy towards animals, then work your way towards animal rights and more complex matters such as ending factory farming. If you’re interested in Spanish or multilingual resources, you can check out organizations like Ética Animal or Sinergia Animal.

Share your perspective on animal welfare and talk about your personal efforts to support animals, whether it’s volunteering work, adopting a plant-based diet, or anything else that contributes to helping animals. Some students learn really well by example, and some students might be motivated to follow yours.

Always educate in a compassionate, kind, and respectful way by encouraging interest, stimulating conversation and reflection, and emphasizing why animals matter and why animal advocacy is important. Ultimately, the goal is to inspire action towards more ethical treatment of animals in whatever ways you can.

Curriculum integration

You can also incorporate animal welfare topics into your lesson plans. Use various subjects such as science or social studies to discuss animals and their rights.

Include units on animal behavior, cognition, and emotions. Highlight studies and documentaries that show animals using tools, displaying empathy, and forming social bonds. 

Discuss the moral and ethical considerations of animal treatment, the animal rights movement, and historical perspectives on human-animal relationships. Books about the natural behaviors of animals, their emotional and social traits will allow you to discuss which qualities humans share with other animals.

Here are some helpful resources:

• Children’s books focusing on animal kindness: Goodreads, Common Sense Media, Bookroo;
• Animal Ethics Bibliographical lists; and,
• SPCA NZ and RSPCA Australia offer curriculum-aligned resources.

You can suggest home activities or incorporate them during school hours if the time permits. Or you can give students homework so you can check if they understand animal rights and welfare. You could also recommend animal-friendly movies (My Octopus Teacher, Guardians of the Galaxy, Bambi, Finding Nemo) or children’s movies about animals and have meaningful conversations about them.

Promoting plant-based meal options in school

Discuss with school administration how your school’s meal program could offer plant-based meals and mention the health benefits. You could highlight the numerous health advantages (such as reducing the risk of chronic diseases), the fact that plant-based meals are often more inclusive to diverse dietary needs, or the reduction in food-related greenhouse gas emissions (which is very important for tackling climate change).

Point out former successful campaigns such as Coalition for Healthy School Food or Plant-Based Universities, which have demonstrated positive results in similar settings—proven success can help you strengthen your case. Another example of great work being done in this area is the organization Greener by Default, which empowers large institutions to move towards more plant-based meals.

Plant-based options can even reduce food costs as well, which might make these changes more appealing to school administrators. New York City Health and Hospitals division was able to save $500,000 in its first year of plant-based meal defaults, as one particularly compelling example.

Sharing vegan recipes

Encourage your students to use the time spent on social media or YouTube to discover plant-based recipes—you could share vegan influencers you enjoy watching, to give them some inspiring examples. Encourage conversations and brainstorming about plant-based options by asking them to share their opinions, favorite recipes, and preferences. A great idea would be to have your students create their own recipes and bring them to class for a plant-based feast! You could even have a contest where the best-tasting dish wins a special prize.

Educational trips

Plan educational trips to animal shelters or farmed animal sanctuaries. Before going, make sure the students know the basics of how to interact (or not interact!) with animals gently, safely and respectfully.

Some shelters or sanctuaries might even offer programs designed for school groups or educational programs about animal rehabilitation, rescue efforts, and ethical treatment. You can reach out to the facility ahead of time to discuss your visit and ask if they have any specific requirements or guidelines for group visits or students. 

Share the facility’s rules and guidelines with your students before going, and make sure they understand what they should not do and how to interact with animals properly and respectfully. Supervise your students during the visit to maintain a safe environment for animals and also so that students stay attentive. 

When it comes to ending factory farming, taking your class on a trip to a farmed animal sanctuary farmed animal sanctuary can be particularly impactful and can give students the opportunity to develop a deeper empathy and understanding of farmed animals' lives.

After any type of visit or field trip, you could have a class discussion to reflect on what students learned and observed. Encourage them to share their experiences, the things they observed, and their feelings about the animals and the facility. 

You can also consider sharing the field trip with the school community so that more teachers engage in such trips and more students have the opportunity to connect to animals. These types of trips can help students discover animals’ vulnerable status in society, as well as explore ways to help them.

Create school projects

There is a lot of potential for getting your students excited about working on their own projects related to animal advocacy and ending factory farming, such as presentations, fundraisers, awareness campaigns about ending factory farming, and more. Some of them might get really inspired and continue advocating for animals independently to end factory farming.

For example, Marielle Williamson, a high school student from Los Angeles, became the president of the Animal Awareness Club and joined forces with the advocacy group Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine to promote plant-based milks in her high school.

You can get project inspiration from TeachKind, Institute for Humane Education (IHE), or NHES, which provide lesson plans and humane education resources. NHES also offers ebooks and other animal protection materials.

Another idea would be to craft creative assignments such as writing stories from an animal's perspective, creating awareness campaigns, or developing presentations on animal welfare issues such as ending factory farming. You can also assign research projects on specific animals, focusing on their behaviors, intelligence, and social structures.

If students are interested, you can help them form their own pro-animal group within your school, and you could be the group's teacher sponsor. Animal advocacy student groups can help attract other students to the cause of helping animals.

Invite guest speakers

One powerful way to get your students access to high-quality information about ending factory farming is to invite skilled guest speakers into the classroom to give compelling presentations.

For example, someone from New Roots Institute could give a presentation about factory farming specifically tailored to high school and college students. In addition, New Roots Institute could promote their “Leadership Academy” to your students, giving your students another way to get involved after the presentation.

You can also invite animal advocates to speak to your students about their work and how they can get involved. Does someone from PETA, Mercy For Animals, or The Humane League live close by? You could reach out and ask them if they'd be interested in coming and talking to your students. You could also invite people working at farmed animal sanctuaries to come talk about different aspects of caring for animals.

Encourage students to use social media for animal advocacy

Social media holds major influence in shaping people's perspectives and interests, especially among young people today. It offers a powerful platform to explore various topics, including animal advocacy.

By following reputable influencers and organizations dedicated to animal rights, students can stay informed about important issues and contribute to positive change. Through social media they can raise awareness about factory farming, animal rights, and other animal-related topics.

Encourage and support your students in exploring animal welfare further. For example, Vegan Cheat Sheet is a comprehensive resource that features an impressive amount of links to animal advocacy books, documentaries, podcasts, and more. It can help them find information on their favorite platforms in their preferred format.

Helping Animals Outside of Work

If you don’t have options for animal advocacy inside of work, or you feel uneasy advocating within your workplace right away, there are many ways to engage in animal advocacy outside the workplace (both related and unrelated to teaching).

In this section, we'll explore some of the ways that you can participate in animal advocacy outside of work.

Find other pro-animal teachers

See if there is any group of teachers that you’d like to join to engage in conversations with and share ideas. It could be an online group or a group that meets nearby. If there is no existing group, you could consider starting one yourself, for example a group of vegan teachers interested in ending factory farming.

You could also create pro-animal materials for educators and share them online, or organize local or virtual educational workshops on animal advocacy (via Zoom or other video meeting tools). You can be someone who brings teachers together and provides them with the materials that they need to make a difference for animals.

Get connected to the broader animal advocacy community

• Connect with other pro-animal teachers or pro-animal people in the community
• Join local animal welfare groups and attend their events
• Search for local animal welfare organizations and join their meetings
• Join your local pro-animal Meetup groups

Connect For Animals provides a great list of pro-animal events, people and an extensive database of organizations to help you get connected to the animal advocacy movement and find your place. Check it out to find events online or in your area.

Collaborate with local animal advocates

Check if there are any local animal advocates who can bring educational programs about factory farming to your school or community. New Roots Institute is a great example of an organization that gives presentations about factory farming within schools, covering the topic from many different angles. Online lessons work well too, if there aren’t animal advocates who live close by. These collaborations can amplify your impact and allow everyone to learn from each other’s experiences.

Volunteer at animal sanctuaries

This is a great way to connect with animals and help directly. You can encourage your students to volunteer or organize volunteer groups to go help out at the sanctuary together. This will help students in many ways as part of their development as animal advocates. Also, their interaction with animals will keep them interested in animal advocacy and encourage them to contribute to ending factory farming.

Donate to organizations

Sometimes, you might not have the spare time or energy to advocate outside of work—this is especially true for people with more obligations or challenges. Donating to farmed animal advocacy organizations is another great way to support advocacy work when you yourself can't be involved. Even small donations to impactful organizations can go a long way.

And even if you can't personally donate, sometimes there are ways to encourage others to donate. Do you know a friend or relative who cares about giving to nonprofits, or a local business leader or community leader? Maybe have a conversation with them about donating to animal advocacy nonprofits.

Animal Charity Evaluators has great information on some highly impactful organizations that can use your donations to help the most animals possible.

Learn more about animal advocacy

Finally, learning more about animal advocacy can also be a great use of time.

If you want to find out more about advocating effectively, you can check out the resources from organizations like Faunalytics, which provides research and information about animal advocacy. Additionally, you can look for resources from organizations like Fish Feel that focus on neglected animals and Animal Alliance Asia that focus on neglected regions.

How to Solve Potential Challenges

Advocating for animals can be difficult sometimes, and we want to be open about that.

You will probably encounter some challenges, but that definitely doesn’t have to stop you from trying to make an impact. It's usually the case that many other people have experienced similar challenges to us, and there are often multiple effective solutions to overcome them. When in doubt, reach out for support and try to find someone who has been in this same situation before.

Here are some challenges you might face and how to deal with them.

Lack of interest or hostility from administration or parents/guardians

For some work, you may need the support of your administration from the start, especially when it comes to implementing bigger changes. This is important to ensure support, resources, facilitate integration, and address potential concerns. It can also provide school-wide engagement. Here are some useful tips to help you talk to your school administration.

If the administration or parents/guardians aren’t interested in farmed animal welfare, you could explain the educational benefits for the students to learn about animal welfare and empathy more generally. You could also present the topic of factory farming from different angles, such as environmental protection, workers' rights, health, etc. If you can align your messaging with the school's values, you might have more luck with making progress.

When it comes to parents, you could explain how learning about these issues can help students develop empathy, responsibility, and social awareness. Discuss how their child’s interest in helping animals has both short and long-term benefits, such as developing leadership skills, engaging with difficult topics in a constructive manner, advocating for themselves and for issues they care about, and thinking critically about ethical dilemmas in society.

Organizations like New Roots Institute have done a lot of work communicating with parents/guardians and school administration through the years, so one of their staff might also have recommendations for your situation specifically.

When it doubt, try to reach out to someone who has been there before, and ask them for advice.

Feeling alone

Loneliness affects most of us pretty strongly, and this is especially true when it comes to advocating for something that we care so deeply about.

First, you can seek the company of other pro-animal teachers and non-teacher animal advocates, both online and offline. Sharing your experiences and seeking support can help you avoid burnout and feel more confident and motivated. At Connect For Animals, we list tons of great events every week that you can attend (online and locally) to help you find like-minded people who also care about animals and ending factory farming.

Time constraints

Maybe you don’t have much time for extracurricular activities at the moment. Teachers often work long hours both at school and after school, and sometimes it might not be feasible for you to pick up extra initiatives.

In this case, you could look for activities that would take the least time and energy, if you still wanted to do something. Certain activities might also be rejuvenating, rather than depleting—many people find volunteering at farmed animal sanctuaries to be very energizing and healing.

You could also set a time in the future at which you could reconsider getting more active. What if you think about this more over winter break, or in the summer? When you get a few weeks off, that could be the perfect time to set yourself up for more advocacy in the next semester.

Donating is always an option, as well. There are plenty of animal advocacy organizations that could really use the funding, so donating is a great way to support ending factory farming.

Finally, you're the one who knows your life best. Take care of yourself, and don't push yourself into burnout territory. Angry, exhausted, burned out animal advocates can sometimes do more harm than good. Taking care of yourself is essential to doing impactful advocacy in the long-term.

Using success stories for inspiration

You can read about other teachers’ success stories in supporting the animal rights movement to feel more inspired in your own life and work.

Henry Spira was a teacher in New York City who became one of the most impactful animal activists of the 20th century. He used his spare time to run campaigns at first, and then eventually transitioned into animal activism full-time.

Julie Knopp is a kindergarten teacher in Richfield, Minnesota. She started volunteering for the organization Compassionate Action for Animals and worked to introduce more vegan food options in her school district.

Your students can also feel more inspired by hearing about stories of other young people who have made an impact in the lives of animals. You could share the story of Genesis Butler with your students, a young animal rights activist who gave a TED talk when she was 10 years old, and who now leads an organization focused on animal agriculture’s impact on climate change. Stories like these demonstrate the power of youth advocacy and can motivate students to take action themselves.

Conclusion

In this article, we've talked about a lot of ways to get active.

A crucial thing to remember is that it's totally okay to start small. The most important thing is that you start taking steps to incorporate advocacy into your life in the ways that you want.

Throughout your journey in advocating for animals as a teacher, it’s important to remember that even seemingly small actions contribute to significant change.

When you have the chance to reach a classroom of young minds to inspire and influence them, every little action can create a snowball effect. Young people, equipped with knowledge and compassion, can continue to advocate for animals throughout their lives, creating a positive and lasting impact on animal welfare.

And your impact can reach well beyond just your classroom, too—you can impact your faculty, your school's food choices, and your school district more broadly. And, there are so many types of animal advocacy you can do outside of work, as well.

Having a support system and a community of animal advocates offers a sense of belonging and can keep you going in the long-term, helping you stay determined and resilient. With the right support, we can achieve great things together.

By getting involved in animal advocacy as a teacher, you can make a significant difference for animals and impact a new generation of animal advocates.

About Connect For Animals

Connect For Animals is a nonprofit platform for people who want to help end factory farming. Get started by signing up here: https://connectforanimals.com/sign-up.