|
The North Shore
Hebrew Academy High School combines the best of Jewish and Secular Studies
into an integrated, well-rounded, and personally rewarding education
for each of its students. We want to help students realize their fullest
potential, knowing that in doing so, they will gain a greater appreciation
for learning and for their own self-worth. This kind of education must
be seen as the basic right of all students in our school. Classes will
be co-educational and will seek to accommodate the needs of many different
kinds of students by exposing them to a variety of spiritual and intellectual
perspectives. In this light, we will encourage individual students to
bring their own unique insights and interpretations to the curriculum.
A primary purpose of the school's program will be to enable each individual
student to discover his or her own area of interest and expertise, be
it in the classroom texts, the sciences, the arts, or the extra-curricular
realm. This will, of course, coincide with our commitment to give students
the tools and the drive to succeed on the highest academic levels after
they graduate. Yet it will serve an even greater responsibility: nurturing
the creativity and self-esteem of all our students in the areas that
best suit them, during their formative adolescent years.
The school will be driven by a commitment to academic excellence. Emphasis
will be placed upon the study of both sacred texts and the scientific
insights of our secular heritage. The learning of basic skills will
be combined with a sophisticated understanding of literature and Western
thought. Thus enriched, our students will meet the admissions criteria
and standards of the most selective institutions of higher learning.
Yet, far more important, they will graduate with a highly developed
and deeply thoughtful approach to the world around them.
In the pursuit of our philosophy, we owe it to our children that they
receive the best, most well-rounded, integrated, and useful education
that our resources allow. This requires that each subject be taught
by those with the highest level of expertise and training, both in their
respective fields and in the skills of teaching. Our students deserve
nothing less.
As a Modern Orthodox Yeshiva, we encourage Zionism and a commitment
to the State of Israel. Our students will be taught to read, write,
and speak the Hebrew of modern Israel. This commitment will extend outside
the classroom, to parades, assemblies, letter-writing campaigns, or
whatever will be deemed an appropriate show of American Jewish support
for the State of Israel. These activities will help students forge a
link with their fellow Jews, be they as far away as Iran, Russia, and
Ethiopia, or as close by as New York City.
It will be no less important to instill in our students a sense of social
responsibility towards society; to that end the curriculum will include
courses covering our American heritage and activities that will encourage
our students to engage the larger culture which belongs to us all as
Americans. Most important, we will strive towards the ideal of educating
students who will go on to improve themselves and the world in which
they live, in the spirit of our great sage, Hillel:
"If I am not for myself, who is for
me? And being only for my own self, who am I? And if not now, when?"
Avot (Ethics of the Fathers) 1:14
|
