Sarah Youngs

Sarah Youngs says her parents prepared her for teaching. “They gave me the tools to succeed: parent involvement and their own love of learning,” says the first year teacher. Parent participation and involvement in children’s education is a key inspiration for student success. “In junior high, my dad sat with me night after night doing math homework. He answered all of my questions, and even though we had some long nights, I ended up in AP calculus!”

Sarah’s parents sent her and her brother to Berkwood Hedge School, a school founded on the philosophy that children construct their own knowledge of the world through active and collaborative exploration of their learning environment. She learned to express herself artistically, and followed her interest in painting throughout college. She earned a Studio Art degree from UCLA. She studied in Italy for one year, and is fluent in Italian.

Sarah earned her teaching credential after teaching art to kindergartners and first graders for the Museum of Children’s Art in Oakland. “I liked being with the kids and teaching art, so I thought teaching could be for me,” she says. She enjoys all of the hands on activities she can offer her students at PACT. And she still gets to teach her favorite subject—art!

First Grade is Where Kids Learn to Be Students

Sarah Youngs’ first grade class has been hard at work becoming students. According to Sarah, “Students work together, and they ‘do’ to learn.” Recently, they’ve been out surveying and making maps. They have mapped the school, the classroom, a room at home, and will be mapping an imaginary place of their own creation. It takes creativity, curiosity, and knowing how to get help when needed.

“They really get resourceful, helping each other and asking for help when they get frustrated,” says Sarah. “You don’t always like doing everything, but you try. And you can’t rely only on the teacher for information. They know they can ask for help from each other and from other adults volunteering in the classroom."

They’ve also been out exploring in the real world. All of PACT’s first graders recently visited Deer Hollow Farm. “We have been studying plants, animals, and habitats. At Deer Hollow Farm, we saw sheep and goats in a farm habitat. When we got back to class, they made collages of what they saw,” says Sarah. The collages and maps adorn the walls of the classroom.

They have been learning the basics, too. Sarah explains, “We did this math benchmark, and the students did really well even on things we haven’t explicitly taught.

Terri Hygate

Terri Hygate believes teaching is a vocation, a calling. And she’s been called to it twice. The first time was in New Zealand where she taught kindergarten, first, and second grade. Then she became a children’s librarian and spent ten years developing collections and programs to promote and advance literacy. Following a move to Australia, Terri studied law while working for a government agency that regulated children’s television programming. “I had every kid’s dream job: I was paid to watch children’s television!” Terri ensured government requirements for quality children’s programming were met. She says Australia and Canada produce the very best children’s programming, largely due to the government requirements on quality.

Terri came with her husband to the United States as a “trailing spouse” and could not accept work right away. She became a volunteer with Music For Minors, a non-profit that provides music education for public schools. Being in the classrooms again, Terri felt the calling to teach for the 2nd time. She worked to get her New Zealand teaching credential recognized, and started teaching in Los Gatos. Realizing she wanted to teach with more parental involvement, she began looking and found PACT. This is her third year with PACT.

While being interviewed for this article, Terri paused to say hello to children walking by. She introduced me to one, saying “Here’s one of mine from three years ago. Isn’t it amazing how fast they grow?” She has two daughters, one in ninth grade and one graduating high school this year. “Amazing!” Yes it is.

Social Studies Has to Be Hands On

Field trips, according to Terri Hygate, are vital to teaching social studies. “For every student, seeing a tule reed hut makes much more sense than reading about one. And even more so for our English language learners,” explains Terri. “You have to go out to teach social studies.” On a recent trip to the Campbell Historical Museum, the class bartered for goods in a general store, prepared and cleaned up afternoon tea, and washed a piece of clothing in a washboard tub and hung it on a line to dry. “That’s how to learn about life 100 years ago.”

Terri’s class is studying the Ohlone peoples. They visited Coyote Hills in Fremont, one of the few Ohlone sites left that hasn’t been built upon. The students examined a large scale model of an Ohlone village. Afterwards, they shared a snack like the Ohlones would have eaten: jerky, pine nuts, walnuts, and dried fruit.

Terri genuinely enjoys her class and being a teacher. Ask her to sum up her class and she says three words, “Bright, pleasant and friendly. They’re a great bunch of kids!”

Bonnie Malouf

Think back to your elementary school days. Do you remember any of your teachers hanging from a bosun’s chair on a tall sailing ship? Bonnie Malouf, one of our kindergarten teachers, does! This picture was taken in February 2006 when Bonnie was teaching 5th grade. Bonnie doesn’t plan on taking our kinders overnight on the high seas but she is still working hard at PACT in the classroom and on the Castro Campus.

Here is a little bit about Bonnie and her philosophy in her own words: The strength of community-based learning in PACT is in the value we see in each individual and the respect we have for every person's contribution to the whole. Every child, parent and teacher has intrinsic worth which, when recognized and appreciated, can then become one shining strand in the fiber that keeps our community growing and thriving. We are a learning community. We are all learning and growing and changing. This community is at the heart of PACT's success.

Teaching and counseling have been my passion for 30 years. I've taught in preschool, elementary, alternative high schools (for high risk students), and college-level classes, as well as adult education. I have a masters degree in counseling and psychology and have worked as a counselor of children and young people in a variety of settings. For the last 17 years, I've been either a parent or teacher in parent participation programs, including Parents Nursery School in Palo Alto and McAuliffe Elementary in Cupertino, and I was one of the PACT founders.

Life long learning is very important to me, and I often spend summers pursuing my own learning—in education or other areas of interest to me. I have two children, aged 16 and 20, who are truly my best (and most persistent) teachers. The alternative status and parent support of PACT allow teachers the flexibility and support to use creative pathways to reach rigorous academic goals and meet children where they are intellectually, academically and socially. This is only possible in a classroom where there is opportunity for children to be working on different activities or levels at the same time. The balance between whole class instruction and meeting individual needs is the challenge and the joy of teaching. Academic rigor, sometimes confused with rigid structure, results from knowledge of student skills and honest challenge on every level.

True teaching is based on connection—of thought, of intellect, of personal relationship. The most successful people in life are learners who know themselves and have developed inner direction.

Stan Aderman

For Stan Adermann, the experience of multi-grade classrooms, thematic instruction, and parent participation in class began with his own schooling. His elementary school combined kindergarten through sixth grade. “It was a philosophical choice at the school to teach multiple ages together, not because there were too few students.” They worked together on large projects, like building adobe structures and growing a garden full of indigenous plants. His early exposure to arts, music, and many field trips are evident in his teaching today. His class goes out frequently for first hand experiences, and art often figures into his lesson plans.

Parents in the classroom are important to him, too. “The best part of parent participation in school,” he says, “is that everyone has different experiences, talents, and expertise. A parent may connect on something with one or two kids, and that connection might not have been available otherwise.” Parents bring into the classroom diverse professional, cultural and personal qualities that help create well-rounded students.

Having an appreciation for cultures and lifelong friends from around the world have given Stan’s teaching a multicultural flair. Stan’s elementary school drew students from many nations, and he continues to backpack around the globe. If he hadn’t been in Africa until November one year, he may not have started teaching. “After college but before I became a teacher, I was working on ethnographic research with a professor in Africa. When I got back home, I was off schedule to start graduate school, so I did some substitute teaching. I enjoyed working with the kids so much, I went and got my teaching credential!”

Room 13 – 4th Grade: Students Like Having a “Cool Guy” for a Teacher

Stan Adermann's 4th grade students have a hard time when pressed for one word to describe him. "Cool," "a guy," and "funny," come up several times each. "Having a guy teacher is different. My other teachers were all women, and they were nice. Well, Mr. A is nice but he's cool, not nicey-nice."

The students like Mr. A, and they are learning, too. Everyone seems to have a favorite lesson and enjoys telling what they've learned. "At my old school, I wasn't very good at math. In Mr. A's room, I'm really good at it. He taught me this "QDPA check" which really helped me." The QDPA check is just one process the students learn to deepen their understanding of a subject. They write the Question, Define the part of the question that contains the math problem, do the Problem as an equation, and Answer the equation in a complete sentence. Then they check their math by reversing the problem and solving it again. This process teaches them how to take a problem apart and solve it with confidence.

Art plays a key part in the class work. "We're learning about culture by decorating skulls for Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead), and looking at art from Mexico." Art at PACT is often personal to the students. "I like the way we have art time to create from our own imaginations. I like that better than learning about famous artists and doing art the way they did." Mr. A is very involved with Arts Focus teaching clay, and he brings art into every subject he teaches.

Cool and funny. When asked to give an example of how Mr. A is funny, this is the story they told: He was reading a book to us and heard an ice cream cart jingling. He took a dollar out and sent a kid to buy him a lime Popsicle. Just like that, while reading. Now that's funny."

Katrina Van Der Linden

Mrs. Katrina, the K/1 teacher in Room 5, has a multinational background. “I grew up moving back and forth from Palo Alto to the Netherlands every few years,” says Mrs. Katrina of her childhood. “I grew up bilingual and skipped sixth grade. I actually never was in the eighth grade either, because of all the moving.” She graduated high school very young, and then spent a year each in Norway and France.

Katrina and her family of five are now living in Palo Alto after several years in Ashland and Corvallis, Oregon, where Katrina taught high school French and Social Studies. Her husband, Jim, is a high school science teacher. Their children are now 14, 12, and 9. Cisca, their eldest, is already achieving local fame as the only female player on the Palo Alto High football team. She also plays in the band, is on the soccer team, and will be on the wrestling team. Anja is an eighth grader and plays soccer, the flute, and is in school leadership. Rory loves to swim with his mom and they go to the YMCA every chance they get. He also volunteers with his mom at the school farm.

Katrina is looking forward to the holidays. The family enjoys making gifts for each other, and family music night when the kids perform their music. She also looks forward to each day with her students at PACT. While writing about a book they read, one student wrote that her favorite memory was “Mrs. Katrina.” Moments like that make favorite memories for the teacher, too.

Room 5 – Kindergarten/1st Grade: Passing the greeting in Canis (and other languages of the many and the few)

When the kindergartners join the first graders for circle time each morning in Room 5, they all pass a greeting around the circle. The language of the greeting, however, is different and chosen by the students. “Hoe gaat het,” “Bonjour,” and “Hola,” are a few of the greetings they’ve passed around so far this year. One morning, a student suggested passing the greeting in Canis, an invented language created by some of the students. The idea was met with the objection that made up languages are not allowed. This turned into a discussion of languages. Some languages are spoken by large groups of people, while others are spoken by only a few, such as Canis. “Goh,” is hello in Canis. The students proceeded to pass the greeting in Canis, and to learn their own names in Pig Latin before returning to the more familiar French, Spanish, and Japanese.

The students of Room 5 are creative. Each brings a fresh view to the group. One sang his favorite song, a Japanese melody, to the class on his fifth birthday. When pretending to grow from a seed into a tree of their choice, students grew into everything from a “doggie bone” tree to an “everything” tree. Once the “everything” idea was heard, all the students wanted to change into an “everything” tree. The class made color poems which were printed onto colored crayon cutouts. Among the rainbow of colors, one student chose clear and used recycled lamination film for the crayon shape.

Art projects and unique learning activities combine in Room 5 to make the most of the creativity exhibited by the students. And the next time you see these boys and girls on the playground, you can remember to say “goh!” to greet them.