Meet Sarah Pendergast
Mrs. Pendergast is the Librarian at Veeder Elementary. Read more about how her mother’s influence and weekly visits to the library as a child has impacted her work today.
I remember being in elementary school and my mother bringing me to the public library on a weekly basis. The creak of the floor when I first entered. The unmistakable aroma of thousands of sheets of paper, each of varying ages, telling a different story. The anticipation that would build as my mother and I perused each aisle of the library. The satisfaction of making a selection of my very own and bringing it to the checkout counter to keep and cherish for a few weeks. But best of all, learning something new as I absorbed the knowledge contained inside of each book. For all of these reasons and more, I knew I wanted to share those vivid experiences and memories with students in a library of our own.
My overarching philosophy as an educator is to instill younger generations to come with a love for literature through an understanding that it can enlighten how they view and interact with the environment around them. I often tie my lessons to real world experiences, such as creating art, solving STEM problems, engaging in research, or even cooking and baking! There is no better place to do this than at Veeder Elementary School. In just my second year, never have I felt more at home surrounded by its incredibly kind and caring children, along with such hard working, dedicated faculty and staff. I believe it is a librarian’s role to serve the entire learning community to the best of their ability. In short, it has been a dream come true to share literature with our students and to create experiences similar to those I treasure, in a nurturing learning environment that encourages this approach.