We discuss the biggest questions: "what's real?", "who matters?" and "how to make a better world?" with scientists, celebrities, activists, writers and philosophers. The Sentientism worldview is "evidence, reason and compassion for all sentient beings." It's a simple, yet radical, philosophy that's grounded in reality (naturalistic epistemology) and has compassion for all sentient beings (mostly human and non-human animals). Naturalism & sentiocentrism combined.
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Laura is Education Officer at The Vegan Society and Chair of The Vegan Society’s Education Network. She is a qualified primary school teacher and well known for introducing the phrase ‘vegan-inclusive education’ to the education sector. Laura worked for several years as the UK’s only vegan inclusion education specialist under the pseudonym ‘Primary Veducation’ and continues to offer training to school staff on what it means to be vegan and how to appropriately teach and treat vegan learners in their care. Laura also empowers vegan learners and parents/guardians by facilitating the creation of peer-developed and reviewed resources and offering supportive interventions.
Sentientism is “evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” The video of our conversation is here on YouTube.
00:00 Clips!
01:14 Welcome
03:20 Laura’s Intro
– Supporting vegan learners & their families in
education (vs. discrimination, being misunderstood)
– Former primary school teacher “my first love”
– Supporting the educators. Building the world’s first and
only CPD (continuous professional development) training course helping educators in being “vegan inclusive”
– Leaving teaching after becoming vegan “I felt that
the curriculum clashed with my ethics too much”
– Vegan daughter starts school “They told me that they
weren’t going to provide a lunch for her… I was crying around the supermarket getting a packed lunch… my daughter is the most compassionate, kind & loving girl… I think she’s being discriminated against.”
– Working with friends to create the UK’s first vegan menu
in her school
– Starting “Primary Veducation” as a free consultancy
– “Theorising vegan-inclusive education”
– “To live through that [discrimination] was mind-boggling… I felt like I was by myself… on my own… all of these things were just completely flipped… I had to find this voice… I believed I was the only vegan the village… who would even care?”
– Finding a vegan community. A wave of vegan parents wanting help “I realised it’s not just me… shouting in this echo chamber”
– “Everything I’d been taught… by people who I respected… my parents, my teachers, religious leaders… told me that one thing was correct… it wasn’t”
– “Everything felt undone… it did feel utterly heartbreaking… something good has come out of it”
11:44 What’s Real?
– Jewish family. Russian-Latvian-Irish-British
– Grandmother born Christian, converted to #judaism
– Attending Jewish school, Synagogue and Sunday School
– Mother “wanted my brother and I to be the most Jewish
we could possibly be so we could fit in… Bar and Bat Mitvah’s”
– “Religion… become something… neither of us… are
particularly driven by anymore”
– Brother & family atheist
– Valuing Jewish community, tradition, culture, food…
“it’s familiar”
– “A lot of the just have blind faith and don’t question… god did this, god created that, we live the way the 10 commandments tell us to – anything other than that is just outrageous”
25:30 What & Who Matters?
44:57 Making a Better World?
01:17:12 Follow Laura
– Veducated:An Educator’s Guide for Vegan Inclusive Teaching
…and much more. Full show notes at Sentientism.info.
Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at Sentientism.info. Join our ”I’m a Sentientist” wall via this simple form.
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This episode is a bonus cross-post of my discussion with fellow Sentientist Amy Halpern-Laff and Jon Moscow on their Ethical Schools podcast. Make sure you go and subscribe there too! A warm welcome to everyone who has recently joined one …continue
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