Sung Hee Kim
St. Andrew’s Episcopal School, Potomac
Classical music plays in Sung Hee Kim’s first-grade classroom at St. Andrew’s Episcopal School. She has framed the windows with blue and yellow organza curtains, and cleans the tables with a homemade spray infused with organic vanilla. Every Wednesday, Kim has a candlelight lunch with her students.
“We spend a lot of time here, so it has to be a welcoming place—a place where we take care of each other, where we want to come every day,” says Kim, 52, who lives in Bethesda and has been a teacher for 16 years, including eight at St. Andrew’s.
After Kim taught her students about mindfulness, they asked to create a meditation space in the room. She got a cushioned bench, put a carpet underneath it, and added a weighted blanket and meditation toys, such as a small expandable sphere that kids can open and close as they breathe. Students can ask to sit in the space, where a timer limits their relaxation escape to three minutes.
Kim recognizes that choice enhances learning, and she’s willing to deviate from her lesson plan to follow kids’ passions. Last year, students were so into analyzing and thinking about Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1957 speech “Loving Your Enemies” that they asked to make a book on the topic. They shared their finished product with others at a school assembly.
The framework for projects may be the same from year to year, but Kim incorporates student feedback, says Jordan Love, head of the lower school at St. Andrew’s. “It creates an opportunity for kids to create their own meaning, and that’s lasting,” Love says. “It adds to the retention of concept because she links it to what really motivates each child.”
Kate Marino, whose daughter, Chase, was in Kim’s class last year, appreciates the confidence that kids gain in the teacher’s classroom. “Ms. Kim promotes broad thinking—understanding why you came up with an answer, not just focusing on right or wrong,” Marino says.
