Palmer-Maria

Faculty

Maria Palmer

Sixth Grade English Teacher

This is Maria Palmer’s 31st year at BPC. Maria received both her B.A. in English literature and her kindergarten through eighth grade teaching credential, with a specialization in teaching English, from UC Berkeley. Maria has also taken graduate courses in English literature at UCLA and completed the coursework for an M.A. in design at UC Berkeley. She taught sixth grade at both Franklin School in Oakland and Altadena School in Altadena, California. Maria was also on the curatorial staff at the Berkeley Art Museum before joining the Black Pine Circle School faculty in 1993. She is the proud mom to two grown children, adores being a grandmother to her four grandchildren, and travels frequently to visit her family in Berlin. Maria enjoys traveling, being in the mountains or at the beach, listening to jazz, making art, reading great novels and poetry, and teaching sixth grade!

Teaching Since

1993

Pronouns

she/her

Contact

Email >

Why I Work with Children

I love thinking, exploring, and learning with the children – they teach me so much!

A Favorite Book

Impossible to answer – but Watership Down and To Kill a Mockingbird are among my all-time favorites.

Quick Fact

Loves to write or paint

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Keen on floating houses and mutant Basset Hounds

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Carla Rodea

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I speak several languages.

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Carwai Seto

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Tamed a mechanical bull in Nashville, Tennessee.

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Emmeline Hill

Emmeline Hill

Sixth Grade Science Teacher and Sixth Grade-Level Coordinator

Herded sheep by motorbike in Australia.

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Gerry Branner

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Gwen Hornig

Gwen Hornig

Eighth Grade English and Eighth Grade Drama Teacher

Ask me about the time I had a magical and terrifying stand-off with a bison in the Badlands.

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Jerry Kennedy

Jerry Kennedy

Seventh and Eighth Grade Music Teacher, Band Director

Performed music in South Africa during the end of legal apartheid.

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Jonathan Cohen

Jonathan Cohen

Eighth Grade Science Teacher

Apprenticed with a luthier, adept with a paddle

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Kathy Henderson

Kathy Henderson

Sixth & Seventh Grade Math Teacher

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Nataliya Vdovychenko

Nataliya Vdovychenko

Upper School Assistant Teacher

Fluent Russian speaker

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Rem Djemilev

BPC String Orchestra Leader

Creates musical arrangements for fun

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Sarah Roggero

Sixth Grade Spanish Teacher

My birthday is April 1st, no joke!

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Torin Coffino

Torin Coffino

Sixth Grade History Teacher

Played Gaelic Football as a youth, and won a Minors championship in Ireland

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Xiaoyan Xu

Upper School Mandarin Teacher

Once ate deep-fried silkworms

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