Hi all! Welcome. Here’s me with my crew. I have an amazing and supportive educator husband, Mark. And 3 lovable, strong, smart kiddos. I’ve been living in the Bay Area for over 30 years (moved from Philly in 3rd grade) and in Oakland for over 20 years now. 

I come from a long line of educators (and lots of ministers in there too). My mom was a high school history teacher. My grandmother, Fern, was a teacher (and a trained nurse) in Maine. Recently, I was proud to learn that I have an ancestor on my mom’s side, a Presbyterian minister,  that helped start Oberlin College in the 19th century. He was an immigrant from Germany.

Since graduating college, I have been working with youth in Oakland. Right out of college, I ran youth programs (grades K-12) at a non-profit, Harbor House. After getting a teaching credential, I began teaching middle school in Oakland. Middle school students get a bad rap, and are eager and ambitious learners (my favorite age to teach); you just need to win their trust first.  Then, after returning to school again for a Masters in Teaching Reading, I’ve been at at Monarch Academy for the past decade as a literacy specialist, and more recently, the Assistant Principal of 3-5 Instruction.

From early on, my family encouraged me to be curious, creative, and I’ve always been fascinated with developing ideas and problem-solving.   I wondered aloud to my husband recently, how do you cultivate flexible, curious learners? My mom raised four creative and curious kids, I suppose. But what did she do along the way?

With this site I hope I’ll be able to explore with you: how can we develop curiosity in our kids, students? Common Core is here to stay, and I love so much about the standards. But what I’ve seen in education in the past decade is that kids struggle with flexible and original thinking. And even the best teachers struggle to give kids the space and time they need to be curious and explore- there’s already so much else to do. How do we fit this important “stuff” in, while rigorously addressing the standards?

My mom’s favorite thing growing up was “going on an adventure”. She’d get in the car (pre-cell phone/Garmin days) and drive from point A to point B in the most unexpected, circuitous way. We did this often. It annoyed me at the time, as it might any kid. But, it also was one of the (small) ways my mom developed independent, creative, and curious kids. So, let’s go on an adventure. The round-a-about, circuitous, failure-along-the-way route. Can’t wait to see what we learn and how we grow!