Jewish Placemaking Pedagogy
Makom Community’s unique pedagogy, Jewish Placemaking, transforms Jewish Education by creating and modeling experiential and intentional learning environments in collaboration with educators, children, and their families. Jewish Placemaking sees each individual’s journey and invites Jewish wisdom to shape how each family and child interacts with the world around them. As a pedagogy, it shapes how we teach and learn and constantly connects us to why, including shaping our curriculum content.
Jewish Placemaking is based on the urban planning idea of placemaking: people can transform a place into somewhere they love being. In Jewish Placemaking children and their families, in conversation with Jewish text, transform our communal space into a place where we love to be. Moreover, we do so in ways that are as wise and unique as each of us are. Families, too, become Jewish Placemakers and interpreters of Jewish text, regardless of previous Jewish experience. This happens in more than physical space, this is also the space between people as we build and nurture our interpersonal relationships.
Jewish Placemaking engages with Jewish wisdom through a variety of learning modalities every day, with a particular emphasis on learning for self-efficacy and depth over breadth of knowledge. The pedagogy celebrates curiosity and questioning of Jewish wisdom. These roots in Jewish tradition are a springboard for children to be kind, confident, and resilient leaders today and in the future.
By listening deeply to children’s voices as they build a community where they love to be, Jewish Placemaking is more than a curriculum or a collection of facts and symbols. Jewish Placemaking is a communal value, encouraging learners to become integral contributors to their community. By approaching Jewish life through the lens of Jewish Placemaking, we have confidence that learners and their families will return to Torah and Jewish community in moments of seeking meaning and connection throughout their lives. Children not only add to the tradition of Jewish interpretation, but their families do too through learning with their children, deciding as a family how to bring our learning home with them.
