A group of PKS teachers and administrators represented our school at the 2017 National Progressive Educators Network Conference in Boston, where more than 1,000 educators joined together to share best practices and recommit to the goals of educating our children to be active citizens and peacemakers in our world.
PKS was invited to present on our Wonder Works program, a great honor for us and a major platform from which to share our story. As we know, “progressive” and “Mandarin immersion” are rarely put in the same sentence. Wonder Works exemplifies how these two parts of our mission come together: we harness student passions and create an authentic need to use Chinese, do sustained research, plan and iterate, and build.
The educators who saw this video at the PEN conference (showcasing several of our current 4th and 5th grade students) commented how remarkable Wonder Works is, as no Chinese immersion school in the country is working on something as student-driven and inquiry-based this.
PKS also participated in a regional roundtable with Presidio Hill, The New School, Park Day School, and Blue Oak, and will be collaborating on a west coast conference where PKS teachers will also present.
Thank you to Linling Cai, Haixia Wu, Julie Bowers, Mike Levy, and Xuejing Lv for representing our school, and Charlotte Mooney for video production!