What can children understand in the eye of a storm?

What does it all mean?

This past month the state of Florida stayed clear of Dorian for the most part.  We were not in the direct path of the storm.   When we came back to our Early Learning Center we pondered what to say to our students.  They are little and we want to balance facilitating their awareness of the world, empathy, and the true value of tikkun olam (which means “Repairing the World.”)  Together we want to build an understanding of the role we each play in caring for fellow humans and our world. 

The teachers explored this with their students by asking, “What happened to the families living in the Bahamas when the storm hit?”  With our younger classes this exploration may not be as in depth as you are envisioning, yet we are laying the beginning foundation of empathy for others and for taking care of the world with a global perspective.    A child I was walking in with from carpool said, “I brought Tzedekah (charity) for that chef.”  (This week we were collecting monies for The World Central Kitchen led by Chef Jose Andres.)  I asked him some questions, he answered a few and then said, “Look, I see a bird!”  The important part was that the conversation had begun.  It is a process that takes place over many years…learning to think from the inside out, and from the outside in, and back again. 

Our life learning of taking care of ourselves and others never ends.  The older students understood a little more.  It might not have stopped them from asking if they could eat some of the snacks in the boxes headed to the Bahamas, yet they still processed, “No, that is not for us.  Yes that does look delicious, but we are going to give it to someone else.”   With great care, together we are laying the foundations of empathy, mitzvot, and tikkun olam.

In our classes we are beginning to experience Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur they continue to explore these actions and feelings.   We often begin this month with the exploration of apples, from “How many apples tall are we?” to “Do they sink or float?”   We read stories about apples and nature and trees. We graph our favorite color apple.   We taste apples dipped in honey and celebrate being together for the holiday as a school family.  From there we dig deeper.  We explore the true meaning of the holiday.  We look in the mirror and take stock of what we see.   We might begin with our physical appearance and then we explore our kindness, our compassion, and the way we can do better and help others.   We explore the parts of ourselves we can see and the parts we cannot see.  We explored what it means to begin a New Year. What is a fresh start?  How can we grow and learn this year?  

In each school we explore different holidays.  We need to dig into the true meaning of the holiday in addition to the more simple learning. 

The storm Dorian brought the eye of this center a little too close for comfort.  In this Jewish New Year and in this new school year  may your life be free of the eye of a new storm, from your personal life to the world around you.  If there are more storms that come into your life may you handle them with strength, resilience, and intelligence.  May you have friends to be there for you in your time of need.  That’s what we are practicing, learning and experiencing at school and in our lives each day!