Hi everyone, Claire here! I'm Gilboa's Merakezet Chinuch (Education Director) this summer. I study Urban Studies and Architecture at Columbia -- both topics I will be bringing into the tochnit this summer!
The theme of the tochnit is... drumroll please...
BRICK & MORTAR: BUILDING A JEWISH UTOPIA.
The idea is largely inspired by what I’ve been learning in various architecture classes about the power of returning to material basics -- that which we can see, touch, hear, and feel -- in order to understand broader concepts in the world. I also think that this sensory focus is how kids learn best -- our chanichimot have so much knowledge already and it is our job to draw on that in order to guide them in new, radical directions. My hope is to focus the tochnit not just on what we want kids to know, but on how to best teach it in a way that engages all different types of chanichimot (and madrichimot!) and their learning styles. In doing this, we will provide them with both the bricks (the actual information) and the mortar (the tools for connecting different pieces of information and building them into a concrete vision for the world we want to create together).
I’ll leave you all with a favorite Rabbi Brous quote that is inspiring me as I craft the tochnit -- “Either you work to dismantle oppressive systems or your inaction becomes the mortar that sustains them.” I hope this tochnit will inspire tzevet and chanichimot towards concrete, real actions in the world!
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