Parents

Our kids are amazing. As an educator, this generation has been a joy to teach and get to know. As a parent, I am incredibly excited about the potential of our kids to change the world for the better. 

But American education has never been more inadequate at preparing our kids to reach their potential. Our kids will confront a rapidly changing, complicated, and sometimes frightening world. Although many of our educators are excellent, they are forced to teach dated or inaccurate curriculum in a system that rewards memorization and conformity. It penalizes novelty, critical thinking, and creativity.

These are the very skills our kids need to thrive.

I've taught traditional and non-traditional undergraduates since 2011 and have guest-taught in high schools and middle schools. I've spent sixteen years helping people access the information they need to make good decisions and build the skills to create or reframe the life they want. I've had four careers. Teaching is, by far, the most rewarding, engaging, and fulfilling job I've ever had. 

Teaching is my fourth career because I was never taught the skills I needed to find my calling, and to absorb the information I needed to become a lifelong learner. Good educators balance confidence and expertise with humility and a willingness to learn from challenges to their existing perceptions. College professors learn the first part from our own professors. That's it. No pedagogy, no ethics training. 

I loved teaching from the first class I TAed in 2010, while pregnant and constantly nauseous. I taught my first university class eleven months post-partum, sleep-deprived, and hired two weeks before the class started. I had the confidence to stand in front of a room of people and talk because of my career in opera. I had the desire to teach burning in my veins. I thought I had the ability to teach, based on observing the best of my teachers in academia and music. 

While I wouldn't call my first years of teaching a failure, I failed a lot. I learned a lot from my screw-ups. I learned more from my students. 

My teaching style is influenced by Socratic Dialogue, Transformative Learning, Critical Pedagogy, and Trauma-Informed Practices. Put simply, I encourage dialogue and constructive critique, I help students build critical and creative thinking skills, and I am responsive to learner needs and accommodations. 

I do not teach bullshit. I don't censor science or history, although I do provide content warnings and accommodations if a topic may be upsetting. If I don't know the answer to a question, I say so, and we figure it out collaboratively. 

Your kid will have a fun, empowering week. I've honed my curriculum into engaging, powerful tools for activating excitement and curiosity. They will learn at least as much from each other as they will from me. They will also leave with an individual blueprint for designing the life they want and building the skills they need to create it. I've done this for a long time, and the results have been amazing. See my Testimonials page for some first-person feedback from students and clients. 

I want your teen to feel connected to their world and their community, and to be able to see possibilities that we never knew existed. They build the path - I just provide the laboratory for research and testing. If you would like more information, contact me and set up a time to talk.