About Me
I am an educator at heart.
For nearly 30 years, I’ve worked in classrooms with one guiding belief:
connection and creativity are not extras — they are foundational to learning.
Long before neuroscience became everyday language in education, I was deeply curious about the children who struggled the most — the ones whose behaviour told a story before their words ever could. I wanted to understand them better, not to fix them, but to adjust what we were doing so learning could feel safer, calmer, and more accessible for everyone.
That curiosity has shaped my entire career.
Before becoming a teacher, I studied psychology and communication. When I entered the classroom, those interests never left me. Instead, I began quietly translating what I was learning — from professional experience, observation, and later neuroscience — into practical, integrated ways of supporting calm, connection, and creativity throughout the day.
Not as programs.
Not as add-ons.
But as part of the natural rhythm of teaching.
From Classroom Practice to Neuroscience Understanding
As my teaching career evolved, so did my interest in the brain–body connection and the science of social and emotional learning. I became deeply invested in understanding why certain practices worked — and why others didn’t — especially in busy classrooms filled with many nervous systems, competing demands, and limited time.
I describe myself as a neuroscience translator.
I take complex brain-based ideas around stress, behaviour, and regulation and translate them into simple, practical understanding that works for:
young children (including preschoolers),
educators,
parents,
and school leaders — often all at the same time.
This shared understanding matters. When adults and children are working from the same language and concepts, regulation becomes less overwhelming and far more achievable.
When the Work Became Personal
Alongside my professional journey, I also became a parent and later, someone navigating profound stress and loss. In 2022, I lost both my father and my husband suddenly. Supporting myself and my children through grief deepened my understanding of stress, trauma, and the nervous system in ways that no textbook ever could.
This experience didn’t change the direction of my work — it clarified it.
It reinforced my belief that people are not broken, that stress responses make sense in context, and that understanding must come before regulation.
My Philosophy
I don’t believe we can single-handedly fix every challenge within education systems.
And I don’t believe we can remove every stressor from modern life.
But I do believe education can change — and that it must.
Real change begins when we understand how humans are biologically designed to learn, connect, and regulate — and when systems begin to reflect that understanding.
In the meantime, we don’t wait.
We work with the reality of today while steadily shaping the possibilities of tomorrow.
That means:
building understanding,
reducing shame,
empowering educators and parents,
and supporting children through small, intentional, everyday practices that align with how nervous systems actually work.
My work is about operating within real classrooms and real constraints — while contributing to a longer-term shift toward education systems that honour human development, not work against it.
In classrooms filled with 25+ nervous systems — and teachers already carrying so much — adding more to the load is not the answer.
Understanding is.
When people understand what’s happening beneath behaviour, they are no longer powerless.
They become agents of change — in their classrooms, their communities, and over time, the system itself.
