Curricular Elements

At its core, Judaism respects, celebrates, and advocates for the values of family, community connection, and tikkun olam (repairing the world), which are embraced by many faith traditions. We naturally integrate these shared human values into our classrooms and school and explore the reasons why they are important in the Jewish tradition. Clergy and staff from Temple Beth Am help us to deepen understanding and enrich the experience of Jewish life and learning. Creative expression and exploration, supporting natural curiosity, and enjoying community experiences together are key aspects of the Jewish nature of the school.

We approach Judaism with great focus on the customs, traditions, and holidays of the religion. The rhythm of the calendar guides us as we celebrate Shabbat weekly with singing, dancing, and delicious challah. Each holiday is celebrated through learning its history and participating in cultural traditions: food, song, dance, and often the creation of ritual objects. Children are welcome to talk about their cultural and religious experiences whether they are of a Jewish nature or not. The way we explore the holidays leaves room for everyone to identify with some aspect of the story or traditions.

Our families and faculty members are from varied religious and cultural backgrounds; all are welcome. The diversity of our community leads to a wealth of cultural knowledge and a diversity of languages. We believe this diversity is what brings our community together.

As a school, we have a concentrated focus on anti-bias education, which involves coming together to learn about, value, and support all dimensions of human differences including but not limited to race, culture, language, gender, ability, and sexual orientation.

The Four Goals of Anti-Bias Education

• Identity: Each child will demonstrate self-awareness, confidence, family pride, and positive social/group identities.
• Diversity: Each child will express comfort and joy with human diversity, accurate language for human differences, and deep, caring human connections.
• Justice: Each child will increasingly recognize unfairness (injustice), have language to describe unfairness, and understand that unfairness hurts.
• Activism: Each child will demonstrate a sense of empowerment and the skills to act, with others or alone, against prejudice and/or discriminatory actions.

In addition to experiences with classroom teachers, children in the school also interact with specialists and special environments. All children benefit from a weekly visit with our music specialist that involves singing, dancing, and playing with musical instruments. Each child has regular opportunities to work with our Community Art Specialist to deepen their understanding and familiarity with art materials and processes.