Teacher Profile Series: Shannon Timoney

When students at PCS reach Upper Primary they are ready to take the lead in their learning, pave their own way, and make their ideas come to life. For a teacher, letting go and letting students lead can be uncomfortable, but Shannon Timoney, PCS’s Upper Primary facilitator, believes this is when the best learning happens: when we’re uncomfortable, when we let go, dive in, ask hard questions and let the answers surprise us.

Mrs. Timoney is a passionate mathematician and scientist, enthralled with the order, patterns and practical applications of math and science. “Math is so fun!” we often hear her proclaim; “and useful!” she adds, a finger pointed in the air. “I love math and science,” she says. “There are answers and facts. There is always a solution; you just have to figure it out, like a puzzle or a game. I love games.” (We know.)

What’s fascinating is how this self-proclaimed fact/answer lover has come to be known at PCS for her incredible ability to embrace the uncertainty and messiness of learner-centered, project-based learning: to trust that her students will take a topic or an idea or an inquiry to a place further and better than she could ever have imagined, and to encourage learning that unfolds as a journey of asking and growing, experimenting and making mistakes, turning in unexpected directions and making new connections. “Learning isn’t about me telling the kids something. It’s about helping the kids find their own connections in a context that they care about.”

Ms. Timoney loves to work with a place- and project-based approach: introducing the students to an idea, like the Big Bang, or a problem, like determining historical accuracy, offering them materials and resources, and then seeing what questions they have and what they can build with their knowledge. We’ve seen stop motion films, interactive multi-media timelines, and recreations of everything from the Universe to a glacier. “Students in UP are at an age when they really begin to understand their responsibility for their learning journey. I appreciate their independence, their bravery and their honesty.”

This bravery and honesty inspires and informs Mrs. Timoney’s dedication to social justice learning and tackling tough subjects with her students. Upper Primary confronted Long Island’s history with enslavement during last year’s “Telling Our Stories” Unit, and they documented activism related to historic and persisting structural racism in America during this year’s Civics Unit. We asked Mrs. Timoney why this work is so important to do in the classroom, why it’s important to speak explicitly about racism, equity, power and identity at school:

“Because where else will it happen? How wonderful for them to learn about and explore these topics in a safe space with peers, without someone telling them how things are or should be. At PCS we are a small group of people who respect and forgive one another. We make mistakes. We ask lots of questions. We don’t know everything. But we will help each other. We read and question and learn together. The goal is that they are inspired to take topics further and continue the conversations beyond the classroom.”