Everyone has their own story. Teachers, like most people, bring those stories – stories that grow out of our passions, our interests, our cultural background, and our personalities – into the workplace. These stories inform how we see the world and how we approach our work. Although teaching is what we do as a profession, it is not all that we are, and it’s those extra dimensions that make each classroom so special.
Meiying’s art and her student’s art side by side.
Prior to coming to PKS (and the United States), I was a teacher at an International School in Taiwan. Teaching in Taiwan was very much “just a job” for me. There was a lot of process and a lot of planning; before the start of every school year we would have to prepare all our lessons (by ourselves) and once it was approved by the principal there was no room for change.
Outside of the classroom, however, I spent my time engaged in my passions: writing and art. Although I never went to art school, I was always drawing and I had a particular passion for picture books. I was able to find a group of people with the same interests and together we collected picture books and listened to authors talk about their work. I even had some of my art displayed in some picture book exhibitions! I wasn’t thinking about coming to the US at all until PeiPei (my former teacher and mentor) called me up and invited me to join PKS.
Coming to PKS was a culture shock - in a tremendously good way. Two weeks after I arrived, we had Back to School Night. I was nervous, especially since English is not my first language but the parents were so nice and supportive. They knew that I was new and shared their thoughts and hopes, and wanted to build a relationship with me. This was so different from how things were in Taiwan - I felt like I had really found partners. One year my children were fascinated with ramps so I asked parents to help us find ramps to use in the classroom. Within hours I got an email from a parent who volunteered to cut the bamboo in their backyard to make ramps of whatever lengths we thought was best to support the learning in the classroom. Because of moments like this, what was originally going to be just a one or two year stint in the US has turned into over nine years.
There are so many things I love about teaching at PKS. I love the community and how parents and teachers work together to support the children. I love the co-teaching model and having so many other collaborative teachers to exchange ideas with. It allows us to create richer projects and more interesting experiences in the classroom.
But most of all I love the children and sharing my interests with them in the classroom. I love telling them stories with puppet shows, singing with them, and sharing my love of art with them. I will often bring in art supplies, like white glue for example, and ask the children how to use the materials. When adults see glue, we see a sticky substance that makes two things stick together. Glue is so much more to children: add color and white glue becomes paint, add glitter and it becomes decoration for a piece of art. I don’t teach the children how to use the materials - we brainstorm together and come up with multitudes of creative ideas.
I also love watching the children grow up year after year. I love seeing them develop from a P1 student who’s just trying to understand the daily routines to a P3 student that can have a meaningful and thoughtful discussion with me. Most of all I love how much my students all love to learn. Because we build our projects around what the children are interested in, not only am I constantly learning with them, but also what they learn is meaningful and memorable. When I was teaching in Taiwan, children were told to just keep on writing the same text; they would trace it over and over until it became muscle memory. Here at PKS, kids learn to write when they are ready to write and because they are motivated to do so. They see teachers taking notes and ask us what we are doing and then do the same. And because we teach children skills when they are ready to learn them and want to learn them, they learn so quickly, deeply, and joyfully.
Each teacher at PKS brings their passions and personalities to the classroom - and through this rich combination we support our children and help them find their own love of learning.