Teachers Archives - Page 4 of 5 - Presidio Knolls School

Technology at PKS

Technology is the Bay Area’s signature industry, but at PKS, technology takes its cues from our educational mission, philosophy, and organizational needs. Last year, the school embarked on an initiative to build a 3-year technology roadmap. That roadmap started with the PKS mission: “to inspire and empower creative, confident, and engaged global citizens to lead and contribute in a future filled with challenge and possibility.”

Elementary

Physical Education at PKS

Every time I have a game, I have one thing I tell my team every single time. I tell them, "Do I care if you win or lose?” And they know the answer — I honestly don't. Then I ask them “Do I care if you try?” And the answer to that is definitely yes.

Mandarin Immersion

Trusting Children to Have an Opinion

As we begin the new year, and as we take a moment to look back and reflect on last year, I want to highlight one unifying thread from our children's experiences in the preschool over the first few months of the school year.

Elementary

Teacher Profile (Paloma Cordova)

Families may know me as the jovial, coffee-drinking, salad-eating English teacher (and I am absolutely all of those wonderful things!) but I am also a deeply concerned human being who worries for the future of our students, given the divisions in our society, events around the world, and even challenges here in the Bay Area.

Elementary

Second Graders and “My City” (我的城市)

The two PKS second grade classes kicked off the year with an exciting dive into their own habitat: San Francisco. The 我的城市 (“My City”) unit of exploration encouraged them to ask and answer big questions: What is a city? What does it take for people to live together and get along? What infrastructure is critical to keeping a community peaceful? What are the biggest problems in San Francisco?

Elementary

Music at PKS

Orff Schulwerk is an active child-centered approach to music education where you take what the kids are already doing when they're born, playing, singing, dancing, speech, games, drama, and beyond. You use that to teach the concepts and the skills in music, which makes so much more sense than anything. Also, music class is not just about teaching students to be great musicians, we are teaching them to appreciate beauty, work cooperatively, and use creativity, while developing their motor skills and often performing tasks requiring independence and higher order thinking skills.

Mandarin Immersion

Teacher Profile (Shihpei Chen)

This year, we are presenting a series of posts profiling PKS teachers. The first installment features Mandarin-immersion preschool teacher Shihpei Chen.

Community

Formal Lunch

On a typical day, every student at PKS brings or buys their own lunch, and each student brings their own culinary and cultural traditions to the table. About four years ago, a PKS parent saw a golden opportunity for learning and sharing. Could we create a regular occasion to share family traditions with classmates? How would students react to sitting down together for a joint “Formal Lunch” — could they even motivate each other to learn and practice table manners?

Elementary

Art at PKS

Art fits naturally within the progressive model; it is the product of experiential learning. When I develop the art curriculum, I don’t just look at what children should know about art and where they should be developmentally. I try to incorporate projects that allow for personalization and inquiry. Art should do that.