What Does It Mean to Be Human?

This is the question I’ve spent my life exploring, with children, educators, and communities. It’s the thread that runs through everything I do: teaching, curriculum design, the humanities, justice work, mindfulness, and now helping others navigate the unfolding reality of UAPs and Non-Human Intelligence (NHI).

For centuries, we’ve explored this question through history, science, religion, literature, and philosophy. We’ve defined ourselves by our intellect, creativity, compassion, and desire to make meaning. Some of the stories we’ve told about ourselves have been expansive and beautiful. Others have been limiting or exclusionary.

But today, something is shifting. If we are not alone in the universe, if there are other forms of life, intelligence, or consciousness, what does that mean for how we understand ourselves?

How do we define what it means to be human if we are not the only ones asking the question?

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Expanding Our Definition

For too long, education has centered on delivering the “right” answers. But now, more than ever, we need the courage to ask better questions.

In my teaching, I invite children to wonder freely. Together, we explore:

• Do you consider humans animals?
• What makes us similar to other animals? What makes us different?
• What might explain those differences?
• How do we treat other species in science and industry? What does that reveal about our values?
• What if another species treated us the way we treat animals?
• What if humans are not the pinnacle of creation?
• What else on this planet might be sentient?
• How might other animals or beings experience reality in ways we cannot imagine?

These are no longer just imaginative or philosophical questions. They now live at the edge of science, history, and spirituality. And they are becoming more timely and real.

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Rethinking Education

As new information emerges and challenges our assumptions, we have an opportunity to rethink the very purpose of education.

Education should not be a conveyor belt of facts. It should be a space where we learn to hold questions. A space for imagination, empathy, and critical thinking. A place where we unlearn what no longer serves us and begin to see the world, and ourselves, with new eyes.

This is not about replacing one worldview with another. It’s about learning to live with complexity. To remain curious and open in the face of mystery.

If the unknown includes forms of intelligence beyond humanity, or beyond Earth, then the classroom becomes more than a site of knowledge. It becomes a space for deep, transformative inquiry.

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Practicing Inquiry Together

These questions are not abstract. They can be brought into real classrooms with real students, right now, as journaling prompts, circle discussions, art explorations, or collaborative projects.

Here are a few that can guide inquiry:

• What makes us human?
• What assumptions do we hold about our uniqueness or superiority?
• Are we alone in the universe? What do you believe, and why?
• How might other forms of life experience reality?
• What counts as sentience, and who gets to decide?
• What stories or cultural traditions suggest we’ve been connected to other intelligences?
• How has knowledge about other beings or deeper human potential been dismissed, hidden, or controlled?
• Who decides what is real or valid knowledge?

When we explore these questions together, we practice exactly the kind of thinking and courage this moment asks of us.

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A New Chapter

As we step into the next chapter of human history, we will need more than just new technologies. We will need new ways of knowing and being. We’ll need empathy, imagination, and a willingness to stretch our understanding beyond old boundaries.

This is the spirit of education I believe in.

Not one that prepares students only for college or tests, but for the mystery of existence itself. One that honors our place in a vast, complex universe. One that teaches us how to ask honest questions, and how to live with them.

So I’ll ask again:

What do you think it means to be human?