The Rashi Chanukah Tamchui is in full swing. On Sunday the six organizations were revealed, under the topics chosen by Grade 6 – Environmental Justice, Grade 7 – Mental Health and Wellness Support, and Grade 8 – Animal Welfare. Although the broader Rashi community is just now starting to engage with Tamchui, the middle school students have been hard at work since early September!
House Meetings
To begin the process the Middle School gathered in advisory groups for “House Meetings” where each student was given a minute to talk about an issue in the world today that mattered to them. The topics that came up the most across these conversations were centered as the issues each grade would focus on. These issues would be used not only to focus the nomination process but also to guide the middle school students teaching to the younger grades.
Meeting and Learning from This Year’s Representatives
After the organizations were decided on, the students began their next phase – meeting virtually and in person with representatives from each organization and designing lesson plans to teach their spotlighted issues to the younger grades. They have now all met with representatives from each organization to better understand the powerful work they are doing and the connection between their organizations and the issues they chose in their house meetings.
What Some Middle School Students Had to Say
Just last week the Social Justice Department interviewed students at each grade level for their insights. We asked two students in each grade how their grade chose the topic to focus on for Tamchui. Additionally, we asked them to tell us what stood out about the nominated organizations that they chose to represent their issue.