This article provides an overview and analysis of a relatively new phenomenon: congregational schools that have altered the conventional grammar of schooling, either through their structural arrangements or through their curricular approaches. Five pre-bar/bat mitzvah models are discussed: family schools, schools as communities,…

The first part of this article refers to the initial attempt to relate Nature to Literature since the age of Hellenistic Alexandria in Egypt. Alexandria was a metropolis of its time with a quite lively character of urban life. Influenced by that character Theocritus was the first to lay the foundations of what is defined as pastoral poetry. In the…