Salesforce Product 8th-12th Graders for Classroom

Suggested Tracks for 8th-12th Graders

Here are possible ideas about how to create an arc of learning based on your community’s interests and needs. These are sessions that already exist in the Kulam curricular outline grouped by theme. 

Shabbat Friendly: A Listening Heart

Objectives:  Participants will… Identify the difference between empathy and sympathy; Identify where empathy is reflected in Jewish values; Practice reframing sympathetic situations they might encounter with an empathetic response; Articulate where and why it is important to practice empathy

Shabbat Friendly: Touchy Subjects

Objectives:

Participants will . . .

Discuss sensitive topics in a safe and supportive space.

Understand new perspectives on difficult subjects.

Model approaches to discussing controversial and/or emotional topics in the future.

Shabbat Friendly: The Pressure to Be Perfect

Objectives: Participants will . . . Discuss achievement culture and its effect on the mental health of teenagers. Examine approaches to perfectionism from religious and psychological sources. Brainstorm about how to respond to the pressures associated with achievement culture.

Shabbat Friendly: Who Do You Think You Are?

Objectives: Participants will . . . Recognize some of their personal identities. Consider how others can make assumptions about us based on our social identities. Explore how identity norms can be challenged and can change over time.

Shabbat Friendly: Risk Taking & Courage

Objectives: Participants will . . . Explore the messages that teenagers receive about risks and courage from the media, society, and Judaism, including messages about gender norms and risk/courage. Reflect on their personal relationship with risks. Reflect on their personal “fallback setting” and how to check in with themselves…

Shabbat Friendly: Jewish Peoplehood

Objectives: Participants will . . . Reflect on their own sense of belonging and connection to the Jewish people. Explore the plurality of ways that Jews around the world connect to Jewish identity. Feel inspired to connect to Jewish peoplehood/Judaism in at least one new way.

Shabbat Friendly: Jewish Identity

Objectives: Participants will . . . Explore the personal experiences and emotions that are connected to Jewish identity. Reflect on the relationship between their Jewish identity and their other identities. Support their peers in connecting to Jewish identity.