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Institute for the Study of Human Knowledge
Today humanity faces unprecedented challenges. How can we apply advances in science and technology to ensure health and safety for all the world’s people? Can we learn to tolerate and appreciate cultural diversity in an ever-shrinking global community? Can we learn to manage the planet’s dwindling vital resources and basic life-support systems before it’s too late?
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Many worthy organizations address these issues in the political, cultural, and humanitarian spheres. But none focus, as does ISHK on the root cause—our very nature as human beings.
ISHK takes a multi-disciplinary approach to the questions of who we are, where we came from, and what we might become. It highlights contributions from contemporary psychology, education, anthropology, medicine, evolutionary biology, neuroscience, and ecology—as well as from traditional systems of knowledge and learning with ancient roots.
Hoopoe Books
Hoopoe tales come from a rich tradition of storytelling in Afghanistan, Central Asia, and the Middle East. For more than a thousand years, people have told these stories to their children, not only to entertain them, but also to help young people understand their world.
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Schools for young children were rare, but storytelling was not. Education came from stories.
These stories can help children understand human nature. They encourage qualities such as self-reliance, the ability to overcome irrational fears caused by things children do not as yet understand, peaceful negotiation rather than violent confrontation, and much else.
This site includes downloadable parent/teacher manuals and a booklet that outlines the unique qualities of Teaching-Stories, their benefits according to current brain research and how you can use them with your children.
Institute for Cross-Cultural Exchange (ICE)
ICE/IEI is a Canadian charity dedicated to promoting cross-cultural education. It encourages learning about other cultures and understanding between them. Its current priority is to donate high quality illustrated folk tales from the Middle East and Central Asia to literacy programs helping children in need.
Judaism 101
Introduction to Judaism
www.myjewishlearning.com/xcommon/Hot_Topics/ primers_index.htm
PJ Library
Jewish Encyclopedia