(Photo by Linda Arntzenius) Third grade teacher at Princeton Junior School Kathryn Amon said that it was while learning to swim as an adult that she gained insight into the learning process. "I knew what the instructor was asking me to do and I felt that as a competent adult I should be able to follow the instructions and yet it was not easy to accomplish; it just hadn't clicked yet. I realized that kids must feel the same sort of challenge." Having learned to swim, Ms. Amon became a swim instructor at the Princeton YWCA, proving the old adage that if you want to learn something thoroughly yourself, teach it to someone else.

Profiles in Education
Kathryn Amon

Linda Arntzenius

"My goal as an educator is to empower children to become self-directed thinkers and learners," according to Kathryn Amon, who has been teaching at Princeton Junior School for eleven years now and is very much at home in her third grade classroom. The Montgomery Woods resident grew up in Union County, and lived in Manhattan and Long Island before returning to New Jersey to join Amon Buick, the firm founded by her grandfather. While it was fun to be part of the family business, she said, her heart was really in teaching. As a child she'd tried on the role in play. Later, she was a volunteer in the small school that stood opposite the dealership, Roosevelt Elementary School in Rahway. "Once or twice a week, I'd go there and help kids with reading and math. After that I was an ESL teacher, but it wasn't until I was in my forties that I decided to take up teaching as a full-time career, my second."

While working with her family by day, she went back to school by night. She already had a bachelor's in American Studies from SUNY, New York, so she enrolled for an MA in instruction and curriculum at Kean University. It took three and a half years, until 1995, to complete the degree. Looking back, she's amazed at the accomplishment. "I couldn't do it now," she laughed.

Learning Connection

After graduate school, she combined her teaching skills with her business background, and founded her own tutoring company, the Learning Connection, providing individual and group tutorials in math, reading, and SSAT preparation. It was through the Learning Connection that she landed a job with Princeton Junior School. When a teacher was out on maternity leave, the principal of the school asked Ms. Amon if she'd be willing to cover for her. Finding that she enjoyed the school environment and appreciated the autonomy that it offered her as an educator, Ms. Amon stayed on. She's been with the school since 1996.

It's a small school serving 125 boys and girls from preschool through fifth grade. Situated on a six acres site in Lawrenceville, it has an organic garden with vegetables and flowerbeds and a small orchard. After school, Ms. Amon runs a homework enrichment club for first through fifth grades. During the summer, she runs an enrichment program emphasizing math and writing, as well as an SSAT preparation program for fifth graders during the summer and throughout the school year.

Having taught a third and fourth grade combined class with a fellow teacher, she likes the age range and the continuity allowed by the combined class. "Children are allowed to develop over a longer period and the younger kids benefit from the experience of the older children." While team teaching, she developed thematic units for various grade levels including Revolutionary War, Pioneers, Immigration, Birds of Prey, and Inventions. "I like thematic teaching. Classroom activities should provide educational challenges for each student while inspiring a love of learning."

The Birds of Prey unit in the spring allows her third grade students to undertake in-depth study, an aspect of teaching that Ms. Amon finds effective for her students and rewarding for her. The young learners undertake research and write a report, and make a life-size model of their chosen bird. The unit involves all aspects of academic studies: science, mathematics, English, and art. "It's great to see how the kids really start to observe closely and develop their sense of wonder." The project culminates in a visit to the Raptor Trust in Millington, New Jersey, where each student gets to see his or her chosen bird at close range. The wild bird rehabilitation center is permanent home to many hawks, eagles, falcons, and owls, and includes a hospital and temporary housing for several hundred more birds.

An avid kayaker and birder, Ms. Amon was delighted to witness the drama of a bald eagle stealing a fish from an osprey while she was on a recent kayaking trip in Delaware.

Earth Watch

In the early nineties, Ms. Amon volunteered with the Earthwatch Institute, an international non-profit organization founded in 1971 that supports scientific research teams around the world. Every year, it recruits almost 4,000 volunteers to collect field data in the areas of rainforest ecology, wildlife conservation, marine science, and archaeology, and aims to inform the public's view of science and its role in environmental sustainability.

As an Earthwatch volunteer, Ms. Amon worked in Fiji, measuring the growth of coral and in Zimbabwe, interviewing women about their nutrition and feeding habits. While she'd go back to Fiji in a heartbeat for the beauty of the coral reefs and the islands, it was the latter that left a lasting impression upon her, she said. Working as part of a team studying Maternal Health Care in 1992, she interviewed women who had walked long distances carrying their babies in drought conditions just to have someone to talk to. She was moved by their simple dignity.

Simplicity

Simplicity is something that has a special resonance for Ms. Amon, who said that she has as a personal goal the elimination of all that is unnecessary. "I'd like to minimize all that I have, to pare down to the bone. I used to aspire to join the Peace Corps but the two-year commitment is more than I can do." Still, when she retires, she hopes to do volunteer work in schools such as those she observed during her time in Africa, which function with minimal resources. Seeing those classrooms inspired her own teaching philosophy and desire to simplify her own life. At some time in the future, she hopes to follow her passion for travel, to see more of the world, not as a tourist but through an organization such as Earth Watch. She plans to do something of the sort when she retires from teaching but that won't be for a while yet. Right now her third graders are arriving for their first class of the week.

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