Blog
Changing the world one student at a time.
My focus for teaching and learning is inspired by and grounded in the core practice and design principles of Expeditionary Learning as a model for engaged multi-tiered learning and in critical literacy, hands-on, art-infused, placed-based strategies that meet the needs of all learners regardless of language, learning or behavioral challenges.
I am an artist, constructivist-reading teacher, and special education teacher by training and a social-reconstructivist and bibliophile by nature. I believe that multi-sensory learning and place-based teaching foster the capacities needed for a successful, purposeful, and joyful life, ignite an intrinsic passion for learning, and inspire responsibility for self, community, and the world. My social-reconstructivist pedagogy emphasizes and addresses social questions and strives to create a better society and worldwide democracy. Reconstructionist educators focus on a curriculum that highlights social reform as the aim of education. I believe that when children (or an adult’s inner-child) get smarter and/or healthier, the world becomes a better place. See my blog, “One Social Re-constructivist’s Journey on the Road to Building a More Just and Ecologically Resilient World” to read more about this.
Our latest blog posts
Studio Habits of Mind and Our Future
Studio Habits of Mind are skills and strategies that help you confront the unknown, solve problems creatively, and articulate your decisions clearly. These habits are creative and critical thinking skills that we internalize and try to use automatically without [...]
Suggested Art Supply List for Classes
The consciously organized studio is a place of acceptance where actions, materials, and the space itself “speak” and guide discovery. ~Nona Orbach, Author of The Good Enough Studio (2020) Buying art supplies are as personal as choosing your wardrobe. [...]
SoulCollage® Card Making What’s it All About?
The Ego, Jung tells us, is that part of the psyche that we think of as 'I' - our conscious intelligence, our everyday brain that thinks, plans and runs the show of our day-to-day life. T he Self, [...]
Somatic Engagement (living in the body) and Expressive Arts
Social isolation and physical distancing during the COVID Shutdown have reinforced a sense of immobilization, helplessness, and uncertainty as dominant trauma responses to what is essentially an unseen threat. Traditional methods fall short in addressing the paralyzing impacts of [...]
How to Develop a Daily Drawing Practice
Very few of us came out of the womb prolific geniuses like Michael Angelo (1475-1584), Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528), Andrew Wyeth (1919-2009), or Horst Janssen (1929 –1995), with a pencil in our hand. Nor will we make as many paintings [...]
Art and Nature – ARTing En Plein Air
Anyone who has stopped to admire the beautiful colors of a sunset over the river or to listen to the chorus of wildlife sounds, flowing water, rain falling, wind in the leaves, or crickets chirping knows that nature and [...]