SSAT Exam Preparation at Pear Tree vs Cram Schools

SSAT exam preparation requires having realistic expectations of a child’s abilities. One question parents often ask is: “Are 4 x classes enough to get a good score on the SSAT?” This question comes with an evident assumption that exam preparation is designed to improve students’ academic performance. However, this is not a realistic expectation…

Paul Romani

Mini School / SSAT Success!

At a crummy time for education with the COVID interruptions, it was wonderful to get a Thank You card from one of our Mini School / SSAT students! She was accepted by 2 x mini schools AND a private high school, so was able to choose her favourite!

Paul Romani

Combining Classic and Modern Literature

William Blake Meets ‘Enemy Pie’ As long as the texts are relevant to our students, Pear Tree Education believes in combining classic and modern literature. This week, we looked at William Blake’s poem ‘A Poison Tree’. The poem talks about the benefits of communication in dealing with anger, as well as the consequences of letting anger brew. Blake uses…

Paul Romani

Healthy Recipes for Kids: Pork Lo Mein

Healthy Recipes for Kids: Here’s the recipe for one of Pear Tree’s healthy hot lunches for kids Making healthy recipes for kids isn’t rocket science! Despite immature taste buds and limited exposure to a range of food ingredients, kids aren’t all that different from adults. We eat with our eyes first. We look for pleasing…

Paul Romani

Qualities of a Great Teacher Mentor

In Kimberly Long’s article about ‘Eight Qualities of a Great Teacher Mentor’ (Education Week Teacher), she provides some sensible ideas for being a great teacher mentor. We’ve taken her ideas one step further, though. As someone that’s been fortunate to have had two great mentors, I believe it’s important for mentor teachers to be inspirational. In…

Paul Romani

Advice For Student Teachers & Their Supervisors

Here’s our response to Education Week Teacher magazine’s question about the topic of advice for student teachers and their supervisors. “For both, I would say to set higher expectations. The basic standard of teaching programs and the level of training provided simply isn’t good enough (I know of several supervisors that are very despondent about…

Paul Romani

Crisis of Imagination and Innovation

If you’ve been following the news of the upcoming iPhone 5S and 5C releases, you’ll be aware of how uninspiring Apple Computers has become. Since the passing of former Apple CEO, Steve Jobs, Apple has stood still. They are paralyzed due to a lack of ideas, imagination/innovation… or one could assume that its a fear…

Paul Romani

Plants & Pollinators course finale

Pear Tree students finish their 3-month Plants & Pollinators course in style! Our butterfly release was the end to an amazing 3-month Plants & Pollinators course. Pear Tree students released 15 butterflies at the community gardens at Maple / 6th Ave. Some photos of the release are below, and more can be found on our…

Paul Romani

Field trip to the Vancouver Demonstration Garden

Pear Tree’s ‘Plants and Pollinators’ students went on a field trip to the Vancouver Demonstration Garden on Friday, 7th June. Maria from City Farm gave Pear Tree’s students a wonderful tour of the gardens. She talked about the numerous plants in the gardens, bugs/insects, and worms. There were some hands-on things to do, and some…

Paul Romani

Bee Hive Field Trip to the Fairmont Waterfront Hotel

Pear Tree students, who are part of the Plants and Pollinators course, went on a field trip to the Fairmont Waterfront Hotel on Saturday, 1st June. Fairmont’s Michael King gave Pear Tree’s students a wonderful lesson about urban bee keeping, bee behaviour, and some of the ecological issues affecting the bee population. He also explained…

Paul Romani