Honesty. Empathy. Respect. Responsibility.

יושר. חמלה. כבוד. אחריות.

 

These four character traits embody the shared expectations of all members of the Kohelet community.  Honesty in relating to one’s teachers, students, and peers.  Empathy in seeing beyond oneself to the needs and desires of others.  Respect in the treatment of people and property no matter who or what they are.  Responsibility toward oneself, one’s family, Hashem, the Jewish people, and society at large.

 

Though these four expectations form Kohelet Yeshiva’s Code of Conduct in all grades, K-12, the school does not simply assume all students fully understand them and are equally capable of living by them.  Instead, from the earliest ages, the school proactively educates around them; giving students the opportunity in developmentally appropriate ways to explore what each expectation means and to practice carrying it out in real life.  From Morning Meetings and the Responsive Classroom program in Kindergarten through 8th grade, to the Foundations, Jewish Outlook, and Jewish Issues courses in 9th – 12th, Kohelet Yeshiva believes that schools in general, and Yeshiva Day Schools in particular, must nurture the social emotional growth of its students alongside their academic and intellectual growth.  

 

Extensive research in character education reveals that the most effective means of doing so is by focusing on only a handful of very specific values, teaching toward them, and reinforcing them throughout the school experience and across all levels of cognitive development.  Kohelet Yeshiva takes that theory and puts it into practice each and every day.