Help a vegan teacher out?

Thanks for the input guys!

You're right Soph, it should be less about conversion and more about respect for other living creatures. This is where I'm trying to go with it.

I live in rural NSW so going to farms is quite common for schools (each high school in my town has it's own mini farm where they raise, sell and breed cattle, sheep, chickens, alpacas, ducks and veggies) so I'm not too concerned about taking them to  those kinds of places. To be honest, most of them probably live on or know family members that have farms. Most schools also go to the big agricultural field day in Gunnedah each year where the meat and dairy industries are put on display.

I agree Showbags, it's a sad time. But I genuinely believe through compassionate, humane education that we can make a positive change to children and society at large. Children are so open to the truth and have a natural curiosity. I want to help that develop so that they have the skills to find their own answers when they're older. But at such a young age, isn't it better to be teaching about compassion and respect for all living beings?

My daughter and I always have a veggie pizza night and watch Babe (once a week, tonight was our night this week), she is only 3 but I always laugh as how distressed she becomes when he is going to shoot the pig and she cheers when he changes his mind, also when the cat is put out in the rain, she sheds a tear or two and we have to pause it and discuss it haha. She also reacts to the scene when the mother pigs get led off into the trucks, she doesn't really understand it but she knows something is not right... But its her favourite movie at the moment. I skip the bit about Factory farming in the very beginning, because I get angry when the narrator says:

"once a long time ago pigs were only bred for eating"

I get so offended and fn angry because No it wasn't once a long time ago Its NOW!

I even think about writing an angry animal activist letter to them about it, then I remember the movie is almost as old as I am!

HAHA.

Get the kids to watch The Wild Thornberrys!
There's episodes about animal poaching and stuff.
How old are these kids?
There's also that episode of the Simpsons where Lisa becomes veg?
Some children friendly ideas here: http://www.imdb.com/list/_nfilNrFrKs/

The Wild Thornberry's!!!! Of course!!! See, I knew you guys would be full of great ideas! I totally forgot about how awesome that show is!!

I'm going to be a special needs teacher, so age, ability, and comprehension varies quite dramatically, depending on the class. So a bit of everything is good.

I have to say I wouldn't go down the path of having animals in the classroom within that context. I work in a library and sometimes we have petting zoos in for childrens activities. I find it so upsetting that these innocent and trusting animals are treated so well for a few months, taught to trust humans only to (most likely) be sold off for slaughter once they grow out of their cuteness. It's also upsetting that the innocent children who play with the lambs etc. probably think that they go back to some lovely green pasture and spend the rest of their life there. It just teaches lies. Or it teaches kids that animals are disposable. Or that it is ok for adults to conveniently obscure what we do to animals. We lie to ourselves and then we lie to our children.  If you don't want to perpetuate this, how do you choose an appropriate way of educating people?

As a librarian, I am all about freedom of information and what disgusts me is the misinformation that is propagated in many children's non-fiction items. We have books on our shelves that have titles like "Where does my dinner come from?" and they contain glossy pics of fat, healthy farm animals on picture perfect farms. Slaughter and the truth about factory farming is blatantly ignored, these books are pure fabrication.They go from cute lamb straight to chops with nothing in between. You don't need to traumatise them with Earthlings, but they should know the truth. One excellent book (possibly the only one of it's kind!) is "Meat: from the farm to your table" by Heather Hasan, it is a great non-fiction children's book that is both accurate and educational.

Maybe a way to introduce animals into the classroom in a positive way would be to get a friend who owns a rescue to bring their animal in and talk about its life, how they adopted him, about what it is to be responsible for an animal.

Ruby Roth has good resources too:

http://www.wedonteatanimals.com/home.html