It’s that sinking feeling, receiving the school letter.
“We’re going on a school trip to….”
A zoo, a farm, a wildlife centre or maybe the zoo is coming to the school. Such as a wildlife experience where they bring exotic animals to visit.
What ever the visit if it goes against your ethics, it can be really tricky to handle particularly when the child is young and might not understand fully why they are being excluded.
On one hand, any parent does not want their child to feel left out. But at the same time we might want to stand up for what we deem to be cruel and unnecessary.
It can also depend where you are in your vegan Journey, I know when I started out, animal attractions were not high on my boycott list, at that point I had not been properly educated about some of the lies these places tell around animal conservation.
The more I have thought about it the more I have cut out visits to these prisons for animals and educated my children about why we don’t visit them anymore.
A friend of mine once helped me decide which animal places to support with a simple question.
Does his place have animal welfare at its core or does it have its own interests at its core?
Simply put, who benefits from the experience, is it the animals or is it the organisation or those visiting the organisation that get the most benefit.
And I do think there are some grey areas and perhaps in that case it is best to avoid all these settings.
As individuals we have the choice to decide where the line is drawn, and following the vegan society definition, we should be seeking to exclude all animal exploitation and having a fun day out is certainly not a necessity, we can definitely live without it.
It does make it difficult though when your child loves animals and is aware of others having these experiences.
For us we are lucky to live near to the new forest where animals roam so we get to see animals that way as we drive through or in walks.
We also support sanctuary’s, run by vegans that are in it for the animals benefit. But I teach my kids that the animals are nit their for us and always make sure any interaction is initiated by the animals.
We can learn about animals via documentaries and books.
But it becomes harder when the school is planning this visit, because I don’t like my kids to feel like they are missing out.
So you do have options, when my kids were in preschool, they went to a farm, this was very early in our vegan journey and I decided at the time to go along.
During the visit, I made it into an educational one for my kids, I explained why we were feeding the baby calves from a bottle, we gave the calves lots of love, apologised to them for what others did to them.
We talked about what these animals become, and the experience they go through in the farm.
This in turn gave my kids the confidence and experience to understand why we were vegan and overall it felt like a positive experience.
The other option is to, take the child out of school for the day and give them an experience that is suitable and aligns with your ethics.
You might also feel like you want to contact the school to suggest a suitable alternative learning objective and don’t forget to check out our page on education where you can get in touch with schemes who can help you make the school more vegan inclusive.
Here is an example of a great letter that was sent by a parent to the school when they had an animal wildlife experience come to their school.
Thank you for the advance notice. I would like to opt XX out of the mobile zoo experience. I hope you understand that we do not believe that animals should be held in captivity for human enjoyment or profit.
May we discuss an alternate lesson for XX please or permission for me to take XX for a more suitable experience with wildlife, such as to a wildlife rescue or a nature reserve? She can report on her learnings in the same way other students will be asked to. If you can help me understand exactly what the learning is meant to be from this experience I can work to replicate this. Are there particular endangered species she should know of that we can watch documentaries about?
I need to say I am unsure how the children learn much about the natural behaviour and habitats of ‘wild’ animals from seeing caged animals, maybe stressed from unnecessary transportation, scared of predators, possibly awake at unnatural times of day and unable to escape. Claiming to have made wild animals “hand tame” shows their natural behaviour is already affected. They aren’t being shown in their natural environment so couldn’t anything they learn about their real homes be learned from books or films? I am sure it will be fun for the children but I don’t think our fun should come at the animals’ expense.
The coronavirus pandemic has also reinforced for me the importance of leaving wild animals in the wild.
Would you have time to read through Freedom for Animals’ campaign materials about the problems with mobile zoos? https://mobilezoo.org.uk/
I know you aim to deliver an inclusive curriculum that is accessible to all so I would really appreciate if the school could consider vegan-inclusive education in this. I think you’ve been sent a letter and information pack from vieducation.co.uk giving advice on how to look into this, but it can be downloaded on their website too if it wasn’t received. I worry that being excluded from class experiences can leave XX or other children feeling isolated and upset and more at risk of bullying for being different and whilst XX will fully understand why she’s not participating, it’s a shame it’s necessary. It would be great if your enrichment events policy was adapted to choose them with equality in mind, not disadvantaging any groups (like ethical vegans).
Thank you for helping us find a solution that suits all our needs.’
We’d love your thoughts on this issue. Have you ever had a similar problem? What did you do let us know in the comments below.