Peachtown Elementary Blog

February, 2021 Many of us have started the new year feeling weary, and it’s no wonder why: America has had a chaotic and tumultuous year. Those of us who work in education know that when the outside world feels chaotic, our lives in the classroom benefit from focusing on the basics. We empower our students to take personal responsibility and we do everything we can to strengthen our classroom communities. When Peachtown students studied U.S. government and civics this fall, the connections between our classrooms and our country were hard to ignore. As educators, we have our fingers on the pulse of human nature and we are uniquely positioned to understand what it takes to lead a disparate group of individuals toward a common goal. We know that the traits that make productive citizens in kindergarten classrooms are the same ones that make adults productive citizens in our communities, country and larger world. Here are some universal truths and expectations that cultivate healthy working...

March, 2020 As an educator who has taught in both mainstream and alternative learning environments, I’m often asked to describe our educational model as it compares to traditional New York state public schools. How do we know that kids are learning if we’re not officially and systematically testing them? How can kids stay motivated to work without letter or number grades to distinguish their status in relation to their peers? How can kids learn to respect their teachers if they’re calling them by their first names? There are no quick answers, but when I think about the work that we do every day and the outcomes of the children we’ve served, the guiding principle that comes to mind, and one that really defines our approach is this: mutual respect. When we respect that children are individuals who come to us with unique interests, capabilities, personalities and goals, we’re able to reach them as such. Each child will head in a unique direction, and it’s our responsibility to...

Students visit the Harriet Tubman statue outside the Equal Rights Heritage Center in Auburn, NY Themed history months are a mixed bag.  In an ideal world we’d all be teaching a diverse and balanced human history and there would be no need to focus on a particular race, culture, or gender for one month out of 12.  That said, the reality of our country and our classrooms is not ideal, so themed history months remind everyone to dig a little deeper and go beyond the white, male, colonist worldview perspective.  When done right, Black History Month is an opportunity to celebrate the positive contributions and accomplishments that black people have made in the United States and throughout the world.   When we teach black history to children we should start with icons who have positively shaped our culture.  It is easy to focus on civil rights leaders, and they are obviously important, but young children also need to see the faces of black poets, mu...

Resolutions abound this time of year, and many of us are on track to drink more water, go to bed earlier or get more exercise. While adults tend to feel the pull of a new calendar year, children are more likely to associate fresh starts with a birthday, the start of a school year, the beginning of summer vacation or even a return to the classroom after a long break. Whatever the occasion, goal-setting is a healthy way for children to begin to think about what they want from life and how to get it. Children as young as 4 or 5 are able to begin this process, and we can all benefit from taking the time to formalize our approach. Here are some tips to keep in mind as you think about setting goals with your children or students. As tempting as it may be to decide on goals for our children, the most empowering experiences will come from self-selected ones. Start by asking your child leading questions to get ideas flowing: What’s a skill you wish you were better at? If you could play an...

The results of an annual lake shore clean-up last spring Enter any elementary math classroom, and you’ll hear kids talking at some point about the concept of zero.  The idea that we would pair the concept of nothingness with waste sounds a little silly in today’s consumer-driven economy. If you search the internet for Zero Waste inspiration, you’re likely to find pictures of people holding single canning jars crammed full of a year’s worth of waste for an entire family. This just isn’t a realistic goal for most of us. Somewhere between the idealized version of Zero Waste and the expensive and wasteful disposable culture sits a middle ground where waste can be sensibly and ethically minimized by people like you and me — people who live, work, and maybe raise children in America today. Here are some affordable and realistic tips to get you started, because as the adage goes, the world doesn’t need a handful of people doing Zero Waste perfectly. We need millions of people do...

By Alyssa Binns Gunderson, published on October 16, 2019 in the  Auburn Citizen One of the many unique aspects of our educational model is the fact that we teach rotating history and science units to our entire student body simultaneously. There are myriad advantages to this method, but my favorite is that we all have a common intellectual interest point when we’re sitting in the lunch room or playing outside at recess. I have watched kids play interactive, self-initiated Revolutionary War reenactments on the playground and have overheard intense debates about astronomical theories at lunch. Any teacher will tell you that there is little better than students discussing academic topics outside of the classroom. It’s a deeply satisfying feeling and encouraging sign that what you’re doing matters in the lives of your students. All that is to explain why I’ve been sharing stories of famous female physicists during our school-wide morning meetings. We’re nearing the end of ...

By Alyssa Binns Gunderson, published on August 20, 2019 in the Auburn Citizen We are living in the midst of a huge shift in the way the world records and understands history. In the earliest days of human civilization, history was shared through oral tradition. Stories were used to create a shared understanding of the world and how it works. As humans progressed, history became a written narrative, with people whose education and circumstances allowed, sharing their observations, opinions and impressions on paper. As printing developed and publishing became an industry, this information was further filtered through the lenses of those who had the power and capital to distribute it. In America, this means that until recently, history has been funneled through the privileged minds and hands of wealthy or middle class white men. I don’t mean to imply that women and people of color haven’t passed along their own histories — we certainly have — but when we look back on the iconic heroes o...

August 23, 2017 Peachtown Elementary School is situated on the Wells College campus, and every year I am amused to see that I am driving just about the ugliest car on campus. First-year college students usually drive better — or at least prettier — cars than I do. I am quite certain that Wells is no different than any other residential college in this respect. I just like a good, cheap car, and I drive it until it stops, whereas most consumers like something new and shiny. As a culture, we are a little obsessed with things: nice cars, nice homes, stylish clothes, exotic foods, overstuffed furniture and the latest technology. Even families with very little discretionary income are inclined to attempt this consumerist lifestyle. The parents of my generation all lived through the Depression and World War II; they were experts at the exigencies of spartan living. They saved rubber bands and twisty ties, and folded pieces of used aluminum foil and bread bags for later use. We thought...

July 26, 2017 Afternoons in the lower classroom at Peachtown Elementary (pre-K through third grade) are a little more casual than the morning academics. After lunch and an active recess, time is devoted to such things as foreign languages, art, music, stories, writing and visiting the library. Recently, in a work session to discuss the general tone of the afternoons, we spoke of “relaxed, productive, creative,” and, ultimately, a focus on aesthetics. Finding the beauty in everyday life and learning to create it may be a rapidly disappearing aspect of education. An enemy of aestheticism is the rush of contemporary life. It takes time to use all of our senses to appreciate what is before us and more time to create it ourselves. In the days of worn books, pencils, crayons and paste, children took their time to carefully practice their cursive, erasing not backspacing, drawing with fat crayons and gluing shapes with sticks dipped in pots of thick paste. A good book came with the smell...

June 28, 2017 Most parents start thinking about long-term savings for college when their children are still toddlers. That’s a good thing. Our culture and economy place a heavy emphasis on college education, but sometimes that emphasis becomes an obsession about a future, which supplants the importance of the here and now. The lives of many high school students and their parents are dominated by the focus of getting into a “good” college. Conversely, parents considering private elementary education are often daunted by even a modest tuition payment. The contrast between decisions made for a kindergarten student and a high school senior are marked. Often, the same parents who hesitate to invest in early education are later delighted to enroll their child in a very expensive Ivy League school. Raising and educating children requires a balance between the health and happiness of a child in the moment and the anticipated outcomes for the future. The two are integrally related. A col...

May 3, 2017 Middle school students get a bad rap. They are stereotyped as difficult to handle and difficult to teach, but in a small multi-age school like Peachtown, we are fortunate to see so many positive qualities in this age group. My sixth- through eighth-grade classes are an absolute pleasure to teach. Certainly, one can expect moody, hormonal seventh-graders and too much idle chatter, but as a group they are eager, independent learners, with reasonably mature manners and values. Peachtown was founded as a K-6 school in 1990. A few years later, we included prekindergarten and extended through eighth grade. We’ve never regretted it. Carrying students through eighth grade is the reward for many years of teaching. Historically, elementary schools were K-8, and developmentally the eighth grade demarcation makes sense. Age 14 is one of those points in child development when a sea change in maturation occurs. Of course, anyone who has worked with teenagers knows that good judgemen...

April 5, 2017 When I hear teachers complain that their students refuse to follow the recommended steps to complete a research project, such as using note cards, preparing outlines or creating a timeline for a project, I secretly feel sympathy for the students. I was always convinced that I had a good enough system, and I liked it. When I did comply, the entire process was an irritant to me. In retrospect, I admit there were virtues in many of the formats suggested to me, but I still feel that the fun is in the creation and the proof is in the pudding. We all have our own ways and ideas. Learning new ones is essential to broadening our perspective, but allowing students the flexibility to create a quality finished product through their own peculiar system may be just as important. One consistent element of my creative process is procrastination. I have never thought it was a virtue, just an inevitability. Procrastination, poor time management, evasive behavior — whatever you call i...

April 5, 2017 When I hear teachers complain that their students refuse to follow the recommended steps to complete a research project, such as using note cards, preparing outlines or creating a timeline for a project, I secretly feel sympathy for the students. I was always convinced that I had a good enough system, and I liked it. When I did comply, the entire process was an irritant to me. In retrospect, I admit there were virtues in many of the formats suggested to me, but I still feel that the fun is in the creation and the proof is in the pudding. We all have our own ways and ideas. Learning new ones is essential to broadening our perspective, but allowing students the flexibility to create a quality finished product through their own peculiar system may be just as important. One consistent element of my creative process is procrastination. I have never thought it was a virtue, just an inevitability. Procrastination, poor time management, evasive behavior — whatever you call i...

March 8, 2017 In recent years, increasing numbers of students have transferred to Peachtown Elementary because their schools have become too stressful for them. They often come after prolonged bouts of truancy brought on by anxiety — sometimes crippling — or when school just becomes too miserable. The source of this disturbing phenomenon seems to be a confluence of factors, some obvious ones such as academic, testing and social pressures, and some less concrete. Our contemporary culture, parenting styles and expectations may also be important elements. Today’s teachers and students are pressured to teach and learn new curricula under a very tight timeline, with high-stakes testing in play. This stress inevitably affects students, not just because of the testing, but because the pace of study is accelerated, homework is unrelenting and success and failure are measured in unforgiving numbers. Middle school-age children are most vulnerable — caught in that grey area between childish ...

February 8, 2017 The first 10 minutes of every day at Peachtown are spent in a morning meeting with all our students. Happenings of the school day are discussed, as are mini-lessons in the arts, poetry or current events. Often, these lessons center around how to be kinder people or better citizens, with the central focus on independence, self-reliance and personal responsibility. A person who is confident, strong and comfortable with themselves and others can stand up and make good choices. They look outward to the people around them, empathic rather than self-involved, bold rather than fearful, and decisive rather than hesitant. A keen sense of personal responsibility is an all-important attribute. It implies integrity: standing by what you know to be right, what you know you should do, or the commitments you have made. Sometimes, however, otherwise responsible citizens turn their backs on people in need; the “bystander effect” is a troubling phenomenon. The greater the number of...

January 11, 2017 A central focus of a Peachtown education is fostering a love of learning characterized by curiosity, research and reflection. When a student follows up an explanation of why cold air is denser than warm by asking why it is that ice expands when it freezes, it makes my day. That child has listened carefully, considered the possibilities, identified an exception and posed an inciteful question — all in a moment’s reflection. As I have often repeated, dialogue is at the heart of learning. A two-way conversation, or better yet a group conversation, takes us in new directions and leads to unexpected places. Classroom dialogue is a conversation among equals. In an effective classroom, the teacher engages students by suspending the differences in their age and education, and inviting students to be full participants in an “adult” conversation. Peachtown classes are discussion-based. Children are free and full participants in their learning. Questioning, interjecting an...