Comment by Meredith Englander Polsky on March 23, 2012 at 10:42pm

The staff and board of Matan applauds Dr. Jeffrey Kress for being the first we’ve seen to mention children with special needs in the discourse on reinventing formal Jewish education (“So, You Want Your School to be More Like Camp?” March 20). Leaders in Jewish education have engaged in much discussion about the need to extract informal experiences such as summer camp and infuse them in “formal” Jewish education. This creates incredible potential to also reinvent how to include (or how to stop excluding) children with special needs in our Jewish education programs. However, Dr. Kress is the first to recognize that the key elements of informal Jewish education also provide the opportunity to welcome and celebrate
all kinds of learners in our programs. Matan has had the honor of working with Dr. Kress as we aim to prepare this next generation of Jewish educators to understand and appreciate diversity of learners. We thank Dr. Kress for his vision in helping to change the landscape of how students with special needs (and their families) are included in the Jewish community.

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