How Your Local Continuing Education Classes Can Benefit Animals

A few months ago, Mariann suggested I sign up for a class. Since I work from home, I tend to get a little — insular, shall we say — and Mariann observed that I needed a few … outwardly facing interactions (or, put another way, a reason to take a shower and get myself out of the house). Plus, working long hours on animal rights issues should, whenever possible, be balanced with a bit of extracurricular activity. The last thing we animal advocates need is to burn out.
After contacting a few adult education programs here in NYC, only to find out that I had missed the deadline and couldn’t enroll in a class until fall, I signed up for a tap dance class. (Yep.) I had taken tap for several years as a teenager, and was amazed at how quickly it came back. And though at first I loved the anonymity of it (sometimes it’s refreshing to be in a space where nobody knows anything about you, and vice versa, so you’re kind of forced to live in the moment), I quickly made a very good friend who just went vegan!
Then, yesterday, I received an email from  The New School for Public Engagement, one of the programs I had originally contacted, letting me know that fall registration is now open. Immediately clicking through to the Media Studies track, I realized that, not only do I wish I had the time and finances to register for something, but — holy rescued cow! — animal rights activists need to be taking these courses!
And not just these courses, either. As we’re always saying here at OHH, when those who care deeply and passionately about animals find themselves in school, any school, it’s a win-win. They have the opportunity to learn facts and techniques that will make them better advocates, and, at the same time, they have a built-in audience — their fellow students and teachers — who can learn from them what’s really going on out there with animals. I have long believed that the classroom is one of the most important places for any animal activist to be — but faced with classes that I really want to take, the message hit a little closer to home.
The New School offers continuing education courses in Persuasion and the Media (examining the contemporary critical and often intensely ideological debate over the power, influence, and partisanship of mass media in shaping American culture, politics, and economic and social life); Fake News, Politics, and Popular Culture (when it comes to current events, especially politics, who really gives us the truth, and how is it disseminated?); and Social Media Mashup (introducing the concept of social media and the mashup process as collaborative cultural exchange). While I personally would be thrilled to enroll in any one of those classes because they are each in areas where I could stand an education, what would be most exciting for me would be the opportunity to bring animals into the mix in a way that would grab the attention of others in the class. And the beauty of these particular classes is that they also require a culminating project — also known as a perfect opportunity to truly open people’s eyes about the horror of animal agriculture, while trying on your new skills for size.
Now I must go prepare for tap class tonight. My silver shoes are, of course, vegan, and I make sure to tell everyone I can.