Dear Friends,
Let’s create a world of serious joy for and with every child.
I invite you to join me in celebrating, honoring, affirming and amplifying the work children are doing to make and build a sense of themselves, their communities and their world, their languages, their cultures, their ancestors, their elders. Their stories.
I am an educator. My first job was in Washington D.C. at a small storefront school. We put on plays and invited the neighborhood. I didn’t yet know the pedagogy of education but I knew what children loved. I became a teacher of the deaf. I pioneered the teaching of writing for multilingual learners and I began to scale these ideas across the country.
I am an author. I have been blessed with many mentors and champions of my work, including the editors and publishers who invited me to share more widely my ideas through the books I’ve written for parents, caregivers, and educators.
I am a social entrepreneur. I have created programs that bring quality learning experiences for kids, teachers and parents/caregivers. I have helped children around the world to become readers, writers and thinkers. I have been changed and impacted by the stories of children themselves. LitCamp, a summer learning initiative I co-created, is experienced by children and teens all across the world. World Read Aloud Day, another one of my co-creations is experienced also by millions of people of all ages, everywhere.
I am a parent/caregiver advocate. A devoted mom myself, I am a champion of parents in the United States and around the world and have written several books on the subject of parenting and learning. I believe parenting is a process, a joy and a mindful way of working in the world to make this world a beautiful place for children. It is also hard work and mentorship, community and support are all critical. I hope my work helps parents to feel less alone and more bonded to their children.
It is time for a new way to think about the way knowledge is delivered and received. The way children gain access to learning and are empowered by it and the way they empower us. The way we live in the world as caregivers, educators, and business leaders to raise children for this new era of equity. I invite you to join me as we delight and inspire our kids with a world that is equitable and imaginative in access and in reach.
This is the true revolution: it comes from the children themselves. Let’s make the world a better place for them and with them, with stories and learning that cross from home to school and back again, from what they see on screens to what they do with us, from early childhood through adulthood.
Let’s make this journey something like never before, something every child can have and hold.
Come join me.