After a decade in the classroom, two years ago my teaching career took a
drastic turn. I submitted a proposal to Redesign Challenge, a project
through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which asked educators to
offer solutions to problems in education. My idea was Curio, an app to
help teachers discover new ideas, curate them in a personalized way, and
collaborate with other educators in order to grow as professionals and
to best help students. My idea was selected and I was asked to attend
Innovator's Weekend (similar to Startup Weekend, but for teachers) in
Washington D.C., where I created the first Curio prototype through the
design thinking process. Curio was born and my teaching career took an
entrepreneurial turn for the better.Since the Redesign
Challenge, in addition to building Curio, I was honored as the 2016
Kentucky Teacher of the Year. In that role, I served as Teacher in
Residence for the Kentucky Department of Education, co-founded multiple
statewide projects including KYEdPolicy.org, Policy Together, and The
Courier Journal Classroom Connections; as well as co-founded a national
teacher led organization called Protect Public Ed. As Kentucky Teacher
of the Year, I was accepted to the Spotify for Education Advisory Board
and received an EF Education First scholarship to study the education
system in Finland with other educators. Prior to being honored
as Kentucky Teacher of the Year, I was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship
to Thailand and Vietnam and an English Speaking Union Scholarship to
study creative writing at Exeter College at the University of Oxford. I
am a contributing writer to the Atlantic and the Washington Post, among
other publications and have been teaching secondary English and creative
writing for twelve years.
