Experiential Education at Cool Shul

What a Jewish Education at Cool Shul is:

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Open minded

We guide our students to find their own answers, discover their own connections and get creative with expressing ancient customs in new and modern ways so they can form very personal Jewish identities.

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Experiential

At Cool Shul we paint, build, move, create, discuss, debate, touch, see and smell as we explore. No text books.

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Led by our Community Leader

Because we believe the environment in which children explore and reflect needs to be extremely safe with consistent messaging, our community leader either leads or co-leads every class to ensure our non-judgmental, open-minded, creative presentation of Judaism is upheld.

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Flexible

We understand that weekends are important for children to restore and prepare for their school week and that week days are very busy.  We also understand that sometimes children’s other interests can interrupt their time with us.  Judaism can’t be the reason they can’t play a sport or be in the school musical, so we are supportive if there are stretches of time when students have to miss all or part of class.

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Reactive

We don’t have a curriculum written in stone.  As the students offer ideas and as we see how they learn, the curriculum continually evolves

 

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What a Jewish Education at Cool Shul isn’t:

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Boring

Because we want the kids to do and not just listen. We find the students look forward to coming back.

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Dogmatic 

We never teach what “Jews do” or “Jews don’t do.”  We know Jews come in all levels of observance and that they are all equally valid ways to live Jewish lives. We only teach rules with the understanding that they are the traditional way of doing Judaism and then try to find modern ways for us to keep the nougat center of that rule rather than have to perform it in a traditional way.

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Judgmental 

There is no such thing as "not Jewish enough."   

Let's learn from each other!