Sam Pesin
Sam Pesin started at Garden Preschool Cooperative as the Head Teacher and Director in September, 2002. He has worked with young children for 31 years and has a Masters Degree in Early Childhood Education and Child Development from Boston's Wheelock College in 1987. Wheelock and NYC's Bank Street College are considered two of the nation's best graduate schools in education.
Sam's teaching career has been dedicated to the important work of guiding young children and communicating with their parents. He is a strong believer in the beneficial aspects of a parent cooperative preschool and also of a mixed age group setting.
Sam's philosophy coincides with the goals of GPC. He works to implement the field of education's and GPC's progressive mainstream developmentally appropriate philosophy that values children's growth in the interrelated areas of cognitive, social, emotional, and physical development and which sees children's engagement with materials and peers in play as their most effective way of learning. Sam works with Ana to create a nurturing environment which encourages self-confidence, imagination, creativity, cooperation, fairness, helping and caring for others, as well as good problem-solving skills.
Sam taught 3 year olds and young 4 year olds at the Open House Nursery School in Brooklyn's Cobble Hill/Brooklyn Heights area and spent weekends and vacations in his hometown of Jersey City for the 14 years before moving back to JC to teach at GPC.
He taught in several preschools around the country, including Eugene and Portland, OR, Austin, Santa Fe, Aspen, and Cambridge. He has worked with children and parents from diverse cultural and economic backgrounds. He has visited over 150 preschools in this country and several during a 1976-77 low budget trip around the world.
In his civic activism, Sam takes after his late father Morris, the "father of Liberty State Park", a community leader and Councilman. Sam has been president of the Friends of Liberty State Park since 1995 and serves on the LSP Planning Advisory Committee. He played a leading role in defeating several commercialization plans for LSP. Sam supports various open space and cultural causes in Jersey City. For his work in improving JC, his name has been engraved in the "Circle of Honor" near his father's name at the base of Journal Square's 9/11 Memorial Fountain.
Other notes about Sam's background:
- Graduated Cum Laude in political science from Boston University in 1971.
- Self-published an "activities for young children" booklet in 1981.
- Served on Board of the NYC Association for the Education of Young Children.
- Was teacher representative for few years on Open House Nursery School Board.
