Experience the Difference
Inside Emery: What We Really Teach
I love my job — almost everything about it — but I’d say my favorite part is teaching. In my Zionism class, I don’t just instruct twelfth graders about the founding of the modern Jewish state, or even just prepare them for the virulent anti-Israel campaigns that many will face on their respective college campuses, I seek to do more. By design, I push my students into slightly uncomfortable places, intellectually and emotionally, to help them figure out what they believe and why. I want them to question assumptions, scrutinize arguments, and carefully consider implications. In short, without meaning to offend, I try to provoke. I hope to do the same here.
I think college is over-rated. Let me clarify: I think it’s important and valuable to get a college education, but I think we spend far too much emotional energy (not to mention money) on gaining admittance to “bumper sticker” schools. Again, let me clarify: There is something special about being in a community of academically gifted & unusually intellectually curious students; but — and it’s an important but — this lottery-like “win” should not be the primary goal or fundamental measure of a student or their high school experience. For one reason, attending an elite college doesn’t increase the chances of achieving a meaningful life; for more here, see The Harvard Happiness Study, the largest longitudinal study of its kind described in The New Yorker magazine. But there’s another reason: I passionately believe that our job as adults working with young people is to help them gain insights that otherwise come from experience. More specifically, I want an Emery education to be about more than mastering content or enhancing cognitive skills — I want it to be about expanding the spirit and enlarging the heart. Let me explain.
This year’s Opening Ceremony theme, Dream Big, was prompted by my first-time visit to the Peres Center for Peace & Innovation in Jaffa — a place I highly recommend. The reason I wanted our students to hear the stories of these amazing Israeli entrepreneurs was not on account of the fame & fortune some have attained; rather, it was to be inspired by the examples of pursuing paths defined not by external expectations or limitations, but instead by personal passions. In addition, I wanted our kids to see how so many of those personal passions were anchored in achieving a wider social good. And finally, I wanted students to appreciate how much patience & perseverance is necessary to overcome the inevitable setbacks attendant with ultimate success. Which, perhaps surprisingly, brings me to the Astros.
Clearly, for a major league baseball team, winning the World Series is the epitome of having achieved success. But how that success is attained matters. To be clear, I’m a big fan of our hometown boys of summer, and I too have looked to compare the Astros’ home record versus away — hoping to find no meaningful correlation between performance, outcomes, and venue of the alleged malfeasance. (Heck, they beat the Dodgers twice in Los Angeles!) And yes, I know that sign-stealing is almost as old as baseball itself. Yet, there are rules — and relative morality is especially dangerous when you have little kids. So when my nine-year-old son, who was ecstatic two years ago and literally curled up in the corner of our couch bawling this past October, says to me in the wake of the scandal, “It makes me sad, Dad, I wish they hadn’t done it,” there’s no good response other than, “Me too.” Because Dream Big should not come at the expense of Do Right. And both are essential components of what we teach at Emery/Weiner.
I think college is over-rated. Let me clarify: I think it’s important and valuable to get a college education, but I think we spend far too much emotional energy (not to mention money) on gaining admittance to “bumper sticker” schools. Again, let me clarify: There is something special about being in a community of academically gifted & unusually intellectually curious students; but — and it’s an important but — this lottery-like “win” should not be the primary goal or fundamental measure of a student or their high school experience. For one reason, attending an elite college doesn’t increase the chances of achieving a meaningful life; for more here, see The Harvard Happiness Study, the largest longitudinal study of its kind described in The New Yorker magazine. But there’s another reason: I passionately believe that our job as adults working with young people is to help them gain insights that otherwise come from experience. More specifically, I want an Emery education to be about more than mastering content or enhancing cognitive skills — I want it to be about expanding the spirit and enlarging the heart. Let me explain.
This year’s Opening Ceremony theme, Dream Big, was prompted by my first-time visit to the Peres Center for Peace & Innovation in Jaffa — a place I highly recommend. The reason I wanted our students to hear the stories of these amazing Israeli entrepreneurs was not on account of the fame & fortune some have attained; rather, it was to be inspired by the examples of pursuing paths defined not by external expectations or limitations, but instead by personal passions. In addition, I wanted our kids to see how so many of those personal passions were anchored in achieving a wider social good. And finally, I wanted students to appreciate how much patience & perseverance is necessary to overcome the inevitable setbacks attendant with ultimate success. Which, perhaps surprisingly, brings me to the Astros.
Clearly, for a major league baseball team, winning the World Series is the epitome of having achieved success. But how that success is attained matters. To be clear, I’m a big fan of our hometown boys of summer, and I too have looked to compare the Astros’ home record versus away — hoping to find no meaningful correlation between performance, outcomes, and venue of the alleged malfeasance. (Heck, they beat the Dodgers twice in Los Angeles!) And yes, I know that sign-stealing is almost as old as baseball itself. Yet, there are rules — and relative morality is especially dangerous when you have little kids. So when my nine-year-old son, who was ecstatic two years ago and literally curled up in the corner of our couch bawling this past October, says to me in the wake of the scandal, “It makes me sad, Dad, I wish they hadn’t done it,” there’s no good response other than, “Me too.” Because Dream Big should not come at the expense of Do Right. And both are essential components of what we teach at Emery/Weiner.
The Emery/Weiner School
A private, pluralistic Jewish, college-preparatory middle and high school serving grades 6-12.
Click here for more information.
Click here for more information.