By Lauren I. Zinn, Ph.D., Rev.
How do we teach our children in the religious school classroom about climate care and maintain connection to our community?
In addition to how we teach through drama, art, games, etc, we must also consider what we teach and the underlying pedagogy. I believe Jewish Educators need to teach students more than Jewish teachings about caring for the Earth. They also need to teach what other religions say about ecological stewardship. Why? Because we all share this Earth and students are not getting this wisdom elsewhere.
Welcome to The Interspiritual Classroom (TIC) where students (of all ages) learn inherited or assigned religious tradition(s) while also learning about others’. Let me explain how the interspiritual community manifests in the religious school classroom using climate/earth care as an example.
The first of my 3-part model for TIC includes teaching the 4 C’s (code, creed, customs, community) of a “Home Religion” – in my case, Judaism. Here, my students learned concepts and current examples of bal tashchit (not destroying), shomrei adamah (guardians of the earth), and tikkun olam (repairing the world). We even emailed the legal counsel to Israel’s Chief Rabbinate regarding shmitah (resting the land).
The second part of TIC is “Interfaith Orientation” which, in this case, included visiting an Amish farm to learn their relationship between religion and earth care. We also learned key concepts of different religions’ approaches to ecological stewardship through The Green Rule poster. The poster is an image of a tree with each leaf representing a different religion, its symbol, and a quote from its scripture that supports the Green Rule: Do unto the Earth as you would have it do unto you – a riff on the Golden Rule. Displaying the poster in the classroom also conveyed the importance of other religions alongside one’s own.
The third and pedagogical part of TIC helps teachers apply the ten Value-Tensions (VTs) for transforming how we teach Judaism (or your religion) to align with humanity’s spiritual development. In this case, the poster supports interdependence, the result of a dialectic between independent and dependent pedagogies.
As we evolve from an “ethno-centric” to a “world/kosmo-centric” worldview (see my book BELONG TO THE WORLD BRING YOUR TRIBE: A New Vision for Judaism), the “what” of teaching Judaism must also evolve. TIC is one model for helping religion teachers teach in a way that expands our worldview and prepares children for interspiritual rights and responsibilities.
I hope Jewish educators use the Green Rule Poster, consider more ideas from TIC, and share their experiences here. Stay tuned for my next book, The Interspiritual Classroom: Sharing Our Religions (including Judaism) So They Survive. Lauren Zinn, interspiritual writer/educator, can be reached at laurenzinn@zinnhouse.com
Poster and study guide: https://www.faithcommongood.org/product/sacred-green-teachings-poster/