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EDUCATIONAL MILESTONE Santa Monica’s PS1 Pluralistic School celebrates 50 years STORY BY BY ANDRES DE OCAMPO | PHOTOS BY MARISSA ROSEILLIER
Independent K-6 school PS1 Pluralistic School in Santa Monica is celebrating 50 years in education this fall.
PS1 Pluralistic School, a Santa Monica-based private elementary school, is celebrating its 50th anniversary this fall. The school, which serves kindergarten through sixth grade, offers a creative and impactful approach to education, which it calls pluralism. PS1 “nurtures children’s socioemotional development, creativity and interconnectedness using pluralism as both the goal and the method,” according to its website. Joel Pelcyger, PS1’s founder and head of school, explains that the idea behind the school was birthed in 1970, in col26 PLAYA PLAYA VISTA VISTA DIRECT DIRECT || AUGUST AUGUST -- SEPTEMBER SEPTEMBER 2021 2021 26
laboration with Eleanor Coben and Mel Suhd. They questioned the traditional school system in America and wanting to change the way children were schooled. In 1971, PS1 opened with six students and twelve teachers. Twenty-eight students enrolled by 1972 and in 1975 PS1 settled in its permanent location on Euclid Street in Santa Monica. “My path (in education) was to start our own school,” he says. “Sometimes schools are named after the street they’re on or the person that started it; ours is based on an idea. With the questions, ‘How do you make society a better
place?” and ‘How do you make life better for each child?’ in mind… you build on those ideas and out comes the school.” “E pluribus unum,” a Latin phrase and the nation’s motto meaning “out of many, one,” is the inspiration for PS1’s name and, coupled with a vision to change schooling for children, provides a unique cornerstone for the school. Pelcyger explains how the Latin phrase ties into the school’s philosophy of pluralism: “You start realizing everybody’s different. It’s the differences among us that are the most interesting, it’s not how we are the same as everybody else. It’s the uniqueness of each being, that our backgrounds are different from each other. The idea of pluralism is, ‘Out of many,’ or recognizing our differences, and ‘one,’ what can we build together.” John Waldman, a 26-year PS1 teacher who has the experience of teaching both of his children when they were in fifth grade, says PS1 is about helping with the development of the students alongside teaching them. “When this job became available to me, I thought that this job is what my philosophy of education is, which is speaking to the individual and helping to develop the individual to be a part of the community,” Waldman says. Pelcyger elaborates on how PS1 strives to make an impact on their students, which speaks to their philosophy, by making them feel like they matter. “You have to start by making everyone feel empowered, like they make a difference,” he says. “If you have that idea in mind and you work toward it, then pluralism can happen.” The idea of pluralism manifests itself in many ways at PS1, according to Pelcyger, in students and the teaching staff. (Continued on page 28)
