Rachel Zierdt, teacher of a fourth- and fifth-grade combination class at Bullis-Purissima School, likes her students to use the “F-word” in class.
“A student will say ‘oh, Mrs. Zierdt, this is fun,'” she said. “And I’ll say ‘uh-oh, you just used the F-word!'”
After 14 years of teaching at Bullis, Zierdt will head to Springer School in the fall, bringing along the programs, activities and “fun” she’s developed with her classes over the years.
Students in Zierdt’s classes don’t often sit still. She emphasizes hands-on and real-world activities to illustrate her lessons.
“I believe in trying to give kids real-life experiences,” she said. “It’s the same stuff they would get in books, but it’s more exciting and more fun.
“When something has a real-life application, it makes learning easier, and to me, that’s what’s important.”
Zierdt integrates these “applications” into every aspect of the curriculum in every grade she’s taught, from math and science to history and literature. And they all have something to do with issues that Zierdt finds to be important in her own life.
For instance, to teach her students about money, she asked them to get an after-school job where they can earn $13 per month. She then set up a bank account for each student where they could watch their earnings grow.
At the end of the year, the students used the money to pay for a field trip.
“The kids feel a real accomplishment,” she said. “Instead of having mom write a check, they’ve earned it themselves.
“The children here have a lot of resources, and I don’t want them to take that for granted,” she said. “That’s why I want them to earn something.”
Other projects have taught students about environmental preservation, which Zierdt finds to be a pertinent cause.
She took her students on a “mass transportation” field trip, riding on trains, busses, BART and trolley cars, to present public transit as a practical option in their own lives.
One’s of Zierdt’s goals as a teacher is to show her students how to learn and grow outside of the classroom.
She volunteers in Los Altos where her students can spot her because, as she says, “I want them to see that it’s important to give back.”
“My father always told me that it was important to make a difference,” she said. “I tell the kids that I’m working hard to teach them so that they can make a difference.”
Many parents of past students feel that Zierdt has done just that.
“She’s one of those once-in-a-lifetime teachers,” said Debra Simons, whose three children have all been taught by Zierdt. “To this day my oldest feels that she was one of her best teachers. She’s had a big impact on her.”
For Zierdt, the feeling is mutual. She enjoys opening up to her students, and finds that they have helped her work through personal issues.
“I try to show the kids that I’m a human being and that I have feelings,” she said.
“My students have seen me go through mourning and grief, and they have helped me do that.”
While Zierdt is looking forward to working with a new team of teachers and administrators at Springer, she says it will be hard to leave Bullis.
“This community has been a friend of mine. They’ve shared my joys, my successes and my losses,” she said. “But change is good.
“I’ve got a new motto I heard on the radio the other day: change is inevitable, but growth is a choice.”
