The Elephant in the Classroom Turns 10: PETA’s Ellie Marks a Decade on the Road

For Immediate Release:
October 12, 2026

Contact:
Sara Groves 202-483-7382

She’s life-size, mechanical, gray, and—for 10 years—one of the most unusual teachers to walk into an elementary school. Ellie the animatronic elephant has crisscrossed the country on 25 national tours for TeachKind, PETA’s humane education division, visiting schools, YMCAs, Boys & Girls Clubs, and summer camps in every contiguous state and challenging children to consider one big question: If an elephant’s feelings matter, shouldn’t everyone else’s?

On Oct. 15, Ellie kicks off her 10th-anniversary tour in Chicago, carrying that lesson into a second decade—and collecting plenty of pint-size wisdom along the way. Photos and testimonials chronicling Ellie’s decade in classrooms are available here.

What have children learned from meeting Ellie? “Animals have families, and animals can’t break into pieces without being hurt,” one student concluded. Another offered two words to live by: “Have empathy!” Other takeaways have been just as perceptive: “Just because animals don’t talk in a way we can understand, it doesn’t mean we should do anything we want to them,” and “We should treat [animals] the way we would want to be treated.”

Ellie’s lesson has changed along with the world around her. When she first hit the road a decade ago, Ringling Bros. was still forcing elephants to perform (now it has none). Her original presentation told the story of a young elephant who was taken from her mother as a baby, intimidated and punished by circus handlers, and eventually rescued and taken to a sanctuary. Today, Ellie’s 30-minute presentation combines engaging storytelling, humane education, and social-emotional learning, encouraging children to recognize that other animals are someone, not something, and to reject bullying and mistreatment wherever they encounter it.

“Children don’t need much convincing that an elephant has feelings—Ellie simply asks them to carry that understanding onto the playground, into the cafeteria, and home,” says PETA President Tracy Reiman. “After 10 years on the road, PETA’s big gray teacher is still showing kids that kindness has no species limit.”

In nature, elephants live in tight-knit matriarchal families, protect one another, and share responsibility for caring for babies. Yet elephants used in circuses can be separated from their families, chained, transported from city to city, and forced to perform through fear and physical punishment. Ellie offers children a way to meet an “elephant” up close without exploiting a living one.

TeachKind provides Ellie’s presentations and accompanying materials free of charge. Additional free classroom resources for grades K-12 are available at TeachKind.org, and educators can request an Ellie visit by emailing [email protected].

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment or abuse in any other way”—points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kits for people who need a lesson in kindness. For more information, follow TeachKind on Facebook and Instagram.