The American Hebrew Academy is impressive, yet has trouble attracting students.
The boldest experiment in American Jewish high school education and leadership, unknown to most of us, is taking place on a beautiful 100-acre campus in Greensboro, N.C., that has to be seen to be believed.
Since its founding 11 years ago, I’d read and heard about the American Hebrew Academy, the country’s only co-ed and pluralistic college-prep boarding school, dubbed by some “the Jewish Exeter.” (The Jewish Week’s education writer Carolyn Slutsky visited the school for a feature we published in 2008.) But only after visiting recently and speaking to, and with, its students, faculty and administration, have I come to appreciate just how impressive it is physically, educationally and conceptually.
“We’re an elite high school that doesn’t want to be elitist,” explained executive director Glenn Drew, who described the academy as “a new paradigm in Jewish education.”
But one with serious challenges in terms of attracting students.
Founded by Drew’s uncle, Maurice “Chico” Sabbah, a wealthy, self-made American businessman who made aliyah as a young man, returned to the U.S. to fight in the Korean War and later settled in Greensboro, the school is an attempt to blend the warmth and cultural depth of Jewish life best represented by summer camps, with the academic excellence of the finest New England college-prep boarding schools.
In addition to faculty in both secular and Judaic subjects, the academy offers a full-time Jewish life staff — the four rabbis represent Modern Orthodox, Chabad, Conservative and Reform streams — to provide experiences for all of the non-class time throughout the week, and Shabbat and holidays during the course of the 10-month academic year.
Drew noted that Sabbah, who died in 2006, was concerned about Jewish continuity and wanted the school to instill leadership skills in its students. Based on the model of several top secular prep boarding schools, the academy seeks to create an environment that encourages students to take an active role in their own education.
Classes are limited to 12 students; they sit around a large, wooden oval “learning table” with their teacher so that they face each other.
No comments:
Post a Comment