Presidio Hill School Weekly News

May 7, 2004

From the director:

Dear Families,

Thank you to everyone for your wonderful support of May Festival. It was a terrific day and as one parent remarked, “I felt a tremendous sense of joyous community.” As always, it was a great treat to watch our children perform. I know of no other school where the eight year olds are completely comfortable on stage, with microphones. My favorite moments were spent standing slightly off stage and listening to the older students encouraging and complementing the younger ones. These exchanges remind me how critically important it is that we continue to find ways for our lower school and middle school students to collaborate.

Last week I participated in the two parent forums on the strategic plan. One theme that emerged in the conversations was around the connection between academics and progressive education. For some people this connection is clear and obvious and for others it is one that raises some questions or concerns. One way to think about this connection is in light of standardized testing. Every May (this year May 24-28) we administer the Comprehensive Testing Program fourth edition (CTPIV) from the Educational Records Bureau (ERB). This is a norm referenced, multiple-choice rigorous test battery designed “to serve the needs of high achieving schools and schools that aspire to higher standards.” The California Association of Independent Schools requires all independent schools in California to administer this test to third through eighth graders.

Our students routinely achieve scores that match or are superior to those of other students in independent schools through out the country. In other words, our students are demonstrating strong academic understandings in verbal reasoning, vocabulary, reading comprehension, writing mechanics, written composition, quantitative reasoning and math skills. And they are doing this without much prior experience to multiple choice testing. This demonstrates their ability to use the information and analytic reasoning skills they have learned through their progressive education in an entirely different format, allowing them to be successful test takers. That seems like a testament to the strength of academics in a progressive educational program to me!

Take care,

Ann Meissner
Acting Director

From The Deans

Hello All,

Multiracial Children have identity issues and concerns of experiencing a sense of being different (physical appearance, name, language, etc), experiencing not fully belonging to any ethnic group, experiencing difficulty with incorporating different heritages into one identity, and experiencing racism from all ethnic groups, including their own. Children of mixed racial and ethnic heritage need an enhanced sense of self and identity and greater inter-group tolerance, language facility, and an appreciation of minority group cultures. The sense of self and identity develops over the entire span of childhood, therefore schooling has an important role in multiracial children’s lives…Content of curriculum materials for schools should include the history and contributions of multiracial Americans since colonial times. Curriculum should present information on and show pictures of people of many racial and ethnic groups, including those of mixed heritage and address directly the history of racism against groups of people, including the multiracial population. Like all children, multiracial and multiethnic children need heroes with whom they can identify. They need to know that multiracial and multiethnic people can be successful.

Tomegia M. Winston

On Friday, May 14th, PHS will have its first Multi-racial Day Celebration. While thirty-eight percent of the students at PHS are self-identified students of color, over half that number are students who identify as multiracial (i.e., Korean-American + Jewish, African-American + Irish + Pakistani-American, etc.). As the largest group of students of color at PHS and the fastest growing group of young children in America, it is important that we recognize these students and families. The day will be fun. Students will spend time discussing multi-racial identity and/or engaging in activities that illuminate multi-racial identity. The highlight of the day will be a 1:00 p.m. performance by Kimiko Joy, a bi-racial singer/songwriter, in the Susan Andrews Theater. Parents are welcome to attend and/or help.

Dream Brightly,
Mohammed Soriano-Bilal
Dean of Multicultural Programs and Services

Collaboration at PHS - Erainya Neirro, 4th/5th Grade Teacher

Curriculum Spotlight Spanish - by Josefina Bates and Andria Orejuela

It is over 25 years since I began teaching here at PHS. The school has changed dynamically, yet one of the essential characteristics of my professional work here has remained constant; the ability to work collaboratively with other educators to design and implement projects for students. This kind of innovative team structure and support attracted me to PHS when I first interviewed for a teaching position. Today, I still very much enjoy working in partnership with my colleagues, and I find students also benefit from working creatively with their peers on a group project.

My first teaching assignment here was as a middle school teacher. In fact, I was the middle school teacher. Our total enrollment was 60 students, and my class of 13 students ranged from grades sixth through eighth. I worked closely with the whole staff including Ann Meissner, but my daily team partner was Bill Jones, who taught eight to eleven year olds in his classroom. Bill was my mentor, and he and I designed a hands-on science curriculum for the upper school students. We also developed school wide math activities for cross-age cooperative groups.

As new teachers became part of our staff, their talents and expertise helped our curriculum to expand and our enrollment to grow. Most recently, I had been working with Lisa Jeli, who is now our Librarian. For almost ten years, Lisa and I team-taught the fourth and fifth grades. We each kept our core group of students for two years, but everyday we opened our moveable wall and mixed the fourth/fifth graders at each table in cooperative groups. We often focused on science activities, but we also worked on social studies and language arts projects with the students.

Today, I am very happily working with Matt Hannibal. We continue to open our moveable wall and mix our fourth and fifth graders together as they work to create projects, which they proudly display. You can see one example outside the fourth grade classroom that we call Polyhedraville. I assisted Matt as he led students through the planning stages of this activity. Students built futuristic cities using a limited number of geometric patterns. They had to discuss and decide on essential buildings and work within a budget. During these lively building sessions, students enjoyed sharing ideas and supporting each other. The kids also gained a solid introduction to geometry. Collaborative ventures for adults and children are effective learning models, and they also provide engaging and memorable experiences. I hope to keep working and learning like this for many years to come right here at PHS.

D¡Llegó la primavera! Spring is here!

As the year winds down, we woould like to share with you the ways we we have been busy challenging ourselves in our expression of many new concepts and vocabulary!

In the Kindergarten we have been learning songs and reviewing all the nombres, números, colores, figuras, el alfabeto, and animales we learned this year! Kindergardeners have also delighted in playing such games as Bingo en Español, Telefono and Uno.

First and second grade have been concentrating on descriptions of themselves and others. We are beginning to integrate the use of the verb tener and accompanying expressions. Tengo hambre, tengo frio. I’m hungry. I’m tired.

Third graders recently completed comic strips set in the tropical rainforest. We have many exciting tales of granny monkeys, ravenous frogs, traveling snails, and super-turtles. We have been presenting them in class, and will hopefully compile a comic book together.

In the fourth grade, we have been working on foods as well as learning to express likes and dislikes. We have recently been reading more in class using ¿Qué Tal?, a monthly magazine. Students are learning about cognates, words that are similar in English and Spanish. They are learning to use them as tools for extracting meaning when reading in Spanish.

The fifth grade is working on an end of the year project consisting of the presentation of two plays. They will present La Niña Que Riega La Albahaca y El Príncipe Preguntón / The Girl Who Waters Basil and The Very Inquisitive Prince by Spanish author Garcia Llorca and Estos Zapatos Mios/These Shoes of Mine by Mexican-American children’s book author, Gary Soto. Students are very excited about the plays. They will also be creating sets, props, and costumes for the plays.

Sixth graders have been learning verb conjugation in the present, new adjectives, and have begun constructing their own sentences spontaneously. We will be soon be beginning our album de familia projects. We continue to examine and deconstruct newspapers from around the Spanish-speaking world.

Seventh graders are creating comic strips and will present mini-monologues describing the rutina diaria. We have been studying various regular and stem-changing verbs, and have now begun to learn reflexive verbs. We will then progress to a study of the past tense, or preterite, in Spanish, and the creation of mini-memoirs.

In honor of Cesar Chavez, eighth grade students Reed Levitt and Martin Encinas have been studying Y no se lo trago la tierra, a collection of short stories written by Chicano author, poet and teacher, Tomás Rivera, famous for his stories narrated in an “oral rhythm” of Mexican-American Spanish. We presented our own theatric interpretation of La Noche Que Se Apagaron Las Luces, a story of an ill-fated love and the cruel hardships of life on the road as a migrante. Eighth graders are also learning the preterite tense and preparing themselves for transitioning into a high school language program.

The month of May brings with it the culmination of a year of new words, ideas, and expressions as students gain experience with the Spanish language and accompanying cultures.

The Friday Archive

Presidio Hill School | 3839 Washington St | San Francisco CA 94118
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