Search results for: Kress Jeffrey S.

There have been several recent articles about the potential held by Social and Emotional Learning methodologies and power these have when combined with an overlay of positive values. While values education has become prominent in Jewish education, SEL is still somewhat novel and deserves more attention.

Outcomes in the inter- and intra-personal realms are central to the goals of Jewish education, yet educators often struggle to address them in a meaningful way. In this article, we describe what we learned from facilitating an online community of practice for congregational school leaders and day school educators seeking to enhance their work in promoting social, emotional, and spiritual growth.

Mussar, an approach to character growth emerging as a movement in the 18th century, has increasingly been incorporated into contemporary Jewish education. The purpose of mussar—the cultivation of character—is consistent with the goals of Jewish day schools and other settings. This article examines the implementation of a mussar-based program in a Jewish community high school. Particular attention is given to questions raised by the introduction of this program into a pluralistic school setting. Implications are discussed in terms of the broader goals of Jewish education.

Students in “community” (nondenominational) Jewish high schools represent a diversity of denominational affiliations, including those who affiliate with more than one denomination and those that affiliate with none. These schools strive to create communities in which students with varying Jewish beliefs and practices are, at the very least, respected and comfortable. At the same time, schools work to avoid internal Jewish communal fragmentation. In this article, the approach to diversity in three such high schools is compared. Each school, in addition to presenting an approach distinct from the others, has created opportunities for communal Jewish engagement through the enactment of practices that are rooted in Judaism and in the ethos of the school, and allow individualization within universal participation. Further, the range of approaches to Jewish diversity exhibited raises questions about pluralism as it relates to the Jewish educational goals of these schools.