The Zuzanna Ginczanka High School in Warsaw is the first secular Jewish minority high school established in Poland since the closures of the Jewish schools that took place after 1968. Our school opened on 1 September 2020, and we currently have 90 students working in six classes. In September 2023, we admitted two first-year classes. Our plans include teaching parallel programs including the standard Polish curriculum and the International Baccalaureate (IB) program. We have a modern science lab developed in collaboration with the Centre of Innovative Bioscience Education (BioCen), located in our educational space at Skierniewicka Street (right next to Płocka Metro Station).
The Holocaust and the anti-Semitic repressions and expulsions that followed the war shattered the intergenerational transmission of secular Yiddish-based culture that was once so characteristic of Warsaw. For a long time, Jewish culture was marginalized and pushed out of sight in public life and in Polish-Jewish homes. In this sense, no school in Poland can be described as “Jewish” in the same sense as the schools that operated before World War II, or even immediately afterwards. However, our school is making a deliberate effort to salvage and build on that cultural heritage. Our aim is to apply secular Jewish values to the modern world, and to examine modernity from a minority perspective. We believe that our minority lens fosters an attitude of curiosity, sensitivity, and openness. To us, Jewishness is about being sensitive, open-minded, and caring enough to get involved and make the world a better place. We teach our students to treasure diversity and to support the most vulnerable members of society as well as animals and the natural environment.
We are creating our high school in close collaboration between the students, the parents, and the teachers. The school is open to all, because this shows the strength and inspiration we draw from diversity. We combine an understanding of Jewish culture with a quality learning environment and an atmosphere of social engagement. We have replaced competition with cooperation so we can learn from each other, support each other, and care for the wellbeing of every individual. Our educational work includes a strong social and emotional learning component. Curriculum instruction is supplemented with mentoring sessions in which teachers provide support and guidance in one-to-one meetings with students. We are creating an effective learning environment at school so that parents don’t have to rely on paid extra classes and students are freed from doing pointless homework. Our school is a place of discovery, and students are invited to develop their passions and get ready for college.
In our community we make a point of inviting students to participate in democratic decision-making processes relating to school affairs. This helps to shape good interpersonal relationships and brings to life the traditional Jewish ideals of tikun olam (Hebrew: repairing the world), equality, empathy, and responsibility. We are creating an environment suited for enjoyable explorations about life, science, and the arts in the service of personal growth and self-discovery.
We named our school after Zuzanna Ginczanka (1917-1944), a forceful and daring Jewish poet writing in Polish, who was executed shortly before the end of World War II at the age of just 27. A versatile and gifted creative artist, Ginczanka has been steadily gaining the recognition she deserves over the last 25 years. We believe that her life and work can be a major positive influence for our teenage students, both as individuals and as involved members of society.
We have an exceptional team of excellent and dedicated teachers, many of whom can draw on extraordinary stores of life experience, research work or creative endeavors as well as activism. We have been educated in various places in Poland and abroad and can navigate our respective disciplines freely. The school is led by experienced principals with a clear vision and a strong sense of mission, who share the school’s values and are familiar with the educational system and various teaching methods and effective school management practices. Some of our teachers learned their skills at the School of Education of the Polish-American Freedom Foundation and the University of Warsaw, adopting modern, creative, socially sensitive working methods that we have found important for our community. The teaching methods we use, especially pair work and collaborative learning, have long been present in Jewish education.
Our school lives and operates within a complex social world, at the intersection of Poland’s majority society and its small Jewish community. We want to take an active part in this intense and fascinating social dynamic. We are happy to cooperate with a range of institutions, including international ones, and the Jewish Community Center in Warsaw, which is an important place for young Jewish intellectuals.
HOW DO WE TEACH?
The Ginczanka High School was established as a place where all students would have equal access to the best education possible. What does it mean? Each of our students can study all subjects, to develop their own passions and interests, and to grow their knowledge and skills in areas where learning gaps are still present. It also means that every student learns to interact with, and learn from, others at the school through projects, teamwork, and activism. Our ambition is to make this happen every single day in every single class.
Our teachers believe that learning is deeper and more effective when students know exactly what to learn, but also how to do it and why. This is why we put emphasis on building better learning skills. This, too, is something we want to be present in every lesson, every single day. Our teachers often provide end-of-class recaps or invite reflection on new material and skills. We often invite students to look back at their lessons and reflect on the progress to make sure that everyone can place their new learning within a broader context.
We recognize the value of learning from mistakes and misconceptions, in students and teachers alike. We have made our school a safe environment for intellectual experimentation, with all the trials and errors this entails. This psychological safety also comes from our grading system. Instead of numerical grades, we provide individual assessments and direct feedback. Our mid-term and end-of-semester formative assessments include feedback from each subject teacher providing information about individual strengths, shortcomings, possible remedial action, and numerical equivalents to guide each student to achieve the level of education to which they aspire.
At the beginning of each school year, we go on trips to get to know each other better and to integrate our community over the course of several days. Over the course of the year, we organize other trips and outings to visit theaters, museums, libraries, and academic centers. We also take the opportunity to explore Jewish places of interest in Warsaw and other locations. We learn actively in and out of school throughout the year.
We also learn a lot from our visitors and invited guests, including visiting students from the United States and Israel as well as Polish scientists, artists, activists, writers, and other experts from various walks of life.
The Ginczanka High School is based on dialogue and good, close relationships. We are a secular school with a democratic system. Building this kind of school is a daily effort but we believe that it provides a foundation for positive development. This concept likewise has an underpinning of Jewish values, such as the emphasis on education, equality, and nurturing and supporting different minority viewpoints and perspectives.
To implement this idea of a school, it is vital that all students participate actively in every lesson, every day to take advantage of the opportunities the school provides to everyone. We encourage active participation of teachers and students in every lesson, including good revision schedules, independent reading, and focused class work. A Ginczanka High student is an active student willing to get involved and to cooperate with others!
This is hard work made possible by individual support that each student can receive from their tutor, the school psychologists, the teachers, and the school management. No student is ever ignored or left unassisted at our school. This gives us confidence that our unique concept and curriculum are achievable to everyone, regardless of negative past experiences or bad habits you may have picked up along the way at other places. Walk the path with us!