Pat Werner
Pat has been a teacher in the public school system for 16 years. She has worked for the last four years as a Literacy Coach at The Children’s Workshop School in the East Village and PS 140 on the Lower Eastside. Before that Pat was a third grade teacher at The Manhattan New School in District Two, taught 5/6 graders at PS 38, and 7th and 8th graders at the Academy of Environmental Science, both in East Harlem. Pat holds a New York State School District Administrator license and a School Administrator/Supervisor license. She holds teaching licenses for nursery through grade 12.
Pat has three children; Ashley, Hans, and Chelsea, and one husband, Erich, and wishes there had been a free school in Manhattan when her kids were growing up. Sixteen years ago she was smitten with Free Schools after reading Free At Last, the Story of the Sudbury Valley School, a slender book that forever after shaped her thoughts about learning and education. Pat believes wholeheartedly in the resolution adopted by the International Democratic Education Conference that states: In any educational setting, young people have the right:
- to decide individually how, what, when, and with whom they learn.
- have an equal share in the decision-making as to how their organizations—in particular, their schools—are run, and which rules and sanctions, if any, are necessary.