Miss Amy Loo – teacher
and Miss Pamela worked together on “Project: Disneyland” in 2004/2005 – a business basics program for eastside preteens in which we sold $10,000.00 worth of Krispy Kremes and then took a group of preteen children on Amtrak to Disneyland. Miss Amy has since taught in and coordinated a variety of children’s programs through Mt. Pleasant Neighbourhood House.

When Miss Pamela moved to work at Kiwassa Neighbourhood House, she dragged Miss Amy with her, as Assistant Coordinator and when Miss Pamela left to open Alderwood; Miss Amy took over Miss Pamela’s role at Kiwassa as Children’s Coordinator. Luckily, Miss Pamela was able to convince Miss Amy to join the team at Alderwood. . .  they have worked together for too long to not work together now!

Amy loves to eat and can eat massive amounts of food without gaining weight – for example, she once ate 8 hot dogs at Ikea in one sitting. She wakes up to Justin Timberlake each morning, and can’t function without coffee. Her biggest pet peeve is people who wait in long Starbucks lines and then don’t know what to order and pay in nickels and dimes. With a B.A. in criminology and counseling and human developmental, her ECE a license and a plan to return to school eventually for her PDP year, Amy is excited to join the Alderwood House team.

Our favourite Miss Amy quote: “Don’t work at Starbucks. People throw coffee at you through the drive in window. It’s not a good thing.”

Miss Gina Trentin – teacher
was a parent of Alderwood House in 2008 and now joins the school as one of the 2008 birth year baby teachers. With her ECE license and a passion for ongoing Reggio-based training, Miss Gina arrived to work the first day with a label maker and only one goal: to label, categorize and find homes for as much as humanly possible in the school (and she has been quite successful)!

Miss Gina seems to need regular infusions of coffee throughout the day – strong, strong coffee. She likes to protect the environment so needless use of raw materials causes her great stress. Miss Gina hates excess packaging but “I need it for the atelier! If I can use the corporate world to fuel my atelier, then that’s ok then.”

Miss Gina laughed when asked if she reads or watched TV. . . with 4 children, there isn’t a lot of time. “I never got over ER off the air. That was my solstice – ten pm on a Thursday.” Our favourite Miss Gina quote: “Ok Illias. Say good bye to Mommy, she has to go to work (kisses him and walks away, and then turns around and comes back). Good Morning Illias! Miss Gina is here!”

Miss Jannel Shute – teacher
has her Early Childhood Educator license and is currently pursuing her Bachelor of Arts in Sociology. She has a young daughter who is a student in the class of 2013. Miss Jannel loves learning stories as an assessment method and thinks that her class is easily the best in the whole school, if not the whole lower mainland. Miss Jannel is known for her felt stories (particularly the seemingly never-ending Old MacDonald Had a Farm that has a bumblebee, elephant, frog, dragonfly, pig and a lion, all living happily together in a red barn) and has a well-defined appreciation for organization. She is also very proud that her class defined themselves as the “storytelling” class. Miss Jannel likes Diet Coke (NOT Coke Zero) and would rather text than phone (she has a blackberry addiction. And a “Perez Hilton” addiction.) She doesn’t like the rain because “It’s wet and it’s cold and it makes my clothes stick to my body and then I get itchy.” Our favourite Miss Jannel quote: “Miss Jannel is not smiling.”

Miss Maria Daudji - teacher
Miss Maria has recently moved to BC from North Carolina, where she completed her B.Sc and her ECE. She is planning on returning to school to begin her Masters in Education in 2010. She often convinces children that they need to practice penmanship – and has helped herds of children painstakingly compose letters for the classroom mailboxes so that the mail could be read during circle time. Miss Maria is also somewhat fearless – without any cooking experience, she has taken on a cooking project where she has made edible (sort of) butter, popsicles, bread, vats of jam and has learned to use a food sealer. Miss Maria likes to travel, and would like to go to Brazil – “I took Portuguese for two years, and after the class, I’d love to go and visit and I haven’t been to a country in South America. I’d probably go to either watch Samba or Capoera.” Our favourite Miss Maria quote: . “Are we still on things that I like doing?? Isn’t that enough already?”

Mrs Pamela Wallberg – Pedagogista
With a BFA from UBC, Early Childhood Educator / Infant Toddler license to practice, and her Masters of Arts in Early Childhood Education in process, she is committed to lifelong education – and looking forward to professional development that, in particular offers additional perks, such as returning to Reggio Emilia, Italy (the ravioli) or New York (the shopping). Her current favourite thing to do at Alderwood is to videotape unsuspecting children and teachers at work. . . particularly during Dance Party! She is the sometimes-proud owner of Snuggle Puppy (who still occasionally pees inside, to her dismay) and is slightly ashamed of how disorganized her house has gotten since she began the time-balancing challenge of Alderwood-UBC-her-husband-and-her-puppy. She used to dance 6 out of 7 days a week, but with limited time availability, she only dreams of having time for dance classes (but does very well at home on Dance Dance Revolution). She would choose reading over TV, and alternates her reading material between interdisciplinary education research (Did you know that ceiling height affects child aggression levels? Strange but true!) and chick-lit. Our favourite Miss Pamela quote: “Put your tears away. Just breathe. Deep breaths. Okay. Let’s count to three.”

Mr Pat McKay – teacher
joined Alderwood House after teaching for 4 years in Japan. Returning to Canada with his new wife and beautiful daughter, he has been a wonderful male-balance to all the female teachers! (He can reach all the highest shelves and help to carry many of the very heavy things. . . like the beautiful tree stumps in the 3 year old group meeting area.) With his Bachelor’s in Sociology and an ECEa license, Mr Pat answered the questions to provide information for this write up very conservatively: he loves his daughter and his wife, etc. and was very careful to not divulge any quirky information. (If anyone can get good secrets from Mr Pat, we will be sure to add them into his profile!) Things Mr Pat dislikes: ignorance, because it is annoying ̴because, Miss Pamela. Just because”; People who don’t signal when driving (but it is ok when you are riding a bike) and people who tells him that seafood is ok to eat and this time it’s different, because he hates seafood and it’s never different. He has also decided to not cut his hair. . . but isn’t opposed to shaving it if the children come up with a project idea related to hair cutting. Our favourite Mr Pat quote: “That’s a nice stump (pointing to a firewood-sized piece). . . what? (realizing that the stump-to-be-acquired is 3 feet by 2 feet). . . I’m supposed to carry that? Uh, does Miss Zahra know what we are using her car for? ”

Mr “Chef” Tony Chan – chef
is, quite possibly, everyone’s favourite teacher because of the wonderful food he feeds us. With a B.A. in Family studies, and a Professional Diploma from Northwest Culinary Academy, Chef Tony worked in France for a year, studying French culinary secrets. (He has also worked at Crave and Elixir in Vancouver.) His first week on the job he managed to discover at least two new recipes – full of vegetables - that the children and teachers devoured and this trend continues. Chef Tony does not like dirt or dirty things and despises bad smells. Expectedly, he loves good smells and a clean and organized kitchen. He refused to choose books OR television as he doesn’t often read or watch tv – instead, he listens to classical music and plays the piano and violin. Our favourite Chef Tony quote: “I don’t think they like the zucchini. Why wouldn’t you like zucchini?”

Miss Zahra Jaffer - teacher
has completed her Montessori diploma and has her ECE license to practice. Her teaching career has brought her to Africa as well as preprimary and elementary classrooms in Canada. She is eager to participate in ongoing professional development workshops and in 2009/2010 she attended the Emergent Curriculum Conference in Vancouver, the Storytelling and Literacy workshop at Christianne’s Lyceum and is going to Italy in the spring of 2010 to attend the North American Reggio conference. During lunch, she often makes a Starbucks trip, and may bring gifts of hot chocolate or chai tea, so we have all learned that Miss Zahra should always take a lunch break. Miss Zahra loves to travel, and if she were to leave for somewhere tomorrow, she would choose Morocco “because I like the name. Morocco!” Her very very large family is spread out across the world, so it seems like she always has somewhere to stay when traveling. Our favourite Miss Zahra quote: “Yes Logan. What do you need? What can I do for you, Logan? Logan, you need to close your eyes now. Yes Logan, I see that you see me.”