Meet Ms. Bonnie

Bonnie Malouf, Kindergarten

Think back to your elementary school days. Do you remember any of your teachers hanging from a bosun’s chair on a tall sailing ship? Bonnie Malouf, one of our kindergarten teachers, does! This picture was taken in February 2006 when Bonnie was teaching 5th grade. Bonnie doesn’t plan on taking our kinders overnight on the high seas but she is still working hard at Stevenson PACT in the classroom and on the new Stevenson Campus.

Here is a little bit about Bonnie and her philosophy in her own words: The strength of community-based learning in Stevenson PACT is in the value we see in each individual and the respect we have for every person's contribution to the whole. Every child, parent and teacher has intrinsic worth which, when recognized and appreciated, can then become one shining strand in the fiber that keeps our community growing and thriving. We are a learning community. We are all learning and growing and changing. This community is at the heart of Stevenson PACT's success.

Teaching and counseling have been my passion for 30 years. I've taught in preschool, elementary, alternative high schools (for high risk students), and college-level classes, as well as adult education. I have a masters degree in counseling and psychology and have worked as a counselor of children and young people in a variety of settings. For the last 17 years, I've been either a parent or teacher in parent participation programs, including Parents Nursery School in Palo Alto and McAuliffe Elementary in Cupertino, and I was one of the Stevenson PACT founders.

Life long learning is very important to me, and I often spend summers pursuing my own learning—in education or other areas of interest to me. I have two children, aged 16 and 20, who are truly my best (and most persistent) teachers. The alternative status and parent support of Stevenson PACT allow teachers the flexibility and support to use creative pathways to reach rigorous academic goals and meet children where they are intellectually, academically and socially. This is only possible in a classroom where there is opportunity for children to be working on different activities or levels at the same time. The balance between whole class instruction and meeting individual needs is the challenge and the joy of teaching. Academic rigor, sometimes confused with rigid structure, results from knowledge of student skills and honest challenge on every level.

True teaching is based on connection—of thought, of intellect, of personal relationship. The most successful people in life are learners who know themselves and have developed inner direction.