Learning experience and group formation
The preparatory seminar for the trip to Poland, held at Massuah, marks the climax of a protracted educational process that takes place at school. The seminar on the Massuah campus, held in a two-day residential format and an experiential and challenging scholastic atmosphere, allows the participants to form a social group on the eve of their departure.
The seminar is tailored to the characteristics of the group and its itinerary and is jointly planned by the school faculty and the Massuah team. The latter is composed of experienced Poland guides and teachers who have advanced degrees (masters and Ph.D.) and vast experience in preparing students for the trip.
Tailoring of contents and programs to destinations in Poland
The seminar program offers a combination of guided activity at permanent exhibitions, academic and art workshops, lectures and workshops tailored to the stops on the itinerary, guided activity at media and multimedia centers, encounters with Holocaust survivors, art workshops that encourage reflection; and contents that help to enhance the participants’ social group formation.
The contents of the seminar encompass the rich and variegated Jewish world that was destroyed in the Holocaust, the Zionist youth movements before and during the war, the special role of the vestiges of the movements in organizing the survivors in the Bricha and clandestine immigration to Eretz Israel, and main issues from the Holocaust era in the context of stops on the itinerary – perpetrators of the Holocaust, victims, and bystanders.
The learning experience at Massuah encourages young people to engage in critical thinking, verbal and creative reflection, and discovery of contexts of these issues that are relevant to their identity and lives today.
Three optional tracks
- A two-day preparatory seminar -full board, twenty-four hours of study, and social-value group formation among the participants.
- A one-day workshop combining activity for the entire grade (including students who are not going to Poland) as part of the preparatory seminar for those going to Poland. The delegation members stay behind for an evening activity, an overnight stay, and an additional one-day workshop. (Transport for those not in the delegation—by arrangement with the Poland Administration.)
- “Coming home,” a concluding workshop after the trip where participants work through their experiences.
