Everyone has a story.

Stories are how we make sense of where we’ve been. They’re how we understand one another.

And, sometimes, they explain why we care so deeply about the things we do.

So it’s probably time I told you mine.

Long before Artful Teaching. Joyful Learning.® Long before The Inspir{Ed} Method.™ Long before I was talking about childhood in the age of AI…

I was an inner-city public school teacher.

And the children in my classroom changed everything I believed about education.

^{One of my early inner-city classrooms. Long before there was a method, these were the spaces where the ideas first began taking shape.}

They were also the beginning of my belief in play-based learning, arts-rich education and a very different way of seeing children.

The children who taught me how to teach

My students were young.

They came from wonderfully diverse backgrounds, and many had already experienced significant challenges in their short lives.

Many of the Indigenous families I work...