MY STORY
I started in a classroom watching kids' eyes light up when they realized they could do something they thought they couldn't.
2015-2017
That moment — the one where a child discovers their own capability — has been the center of everything I've done for the last 25 years. I've taught high school and elementary, led a school in Panamá, and came home to Annapolis to run a preschool. Along the way, I created three characters named Drip, Drop, and Drizzle who teach kids that their feelings aren't the problem. Their feelings are the starting point.
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Yet, over time, I learned that the kids weren't the ones who needed to change. The adults around them were carrying so much — so much pressure, so much noise, so much doubt about whether they were doing it right — that they simply couldn't show up the way they wanted to.
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That realization shifted a lot for me. I've spent the last few years as the only educator inside a cross-industry AI learning community, working alongside professionals in biomedical, legal, finance, and tech. And the lesson was always the same: the gap between where we are and where kids need us to be isn't about technology. It's about whether the adults have done their own work first.
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Social-emotional skills. Executive functioning skills. The willingness to learn out loud. These aren't just things we teach kids — they're things we have to build in ourselves.
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That's the work. Whether I'm on a stage, in a classroom, or sitting across from a school leader who knows something has to change.
SPEAKING
These are the conversations I'm having with schools, parent groups, and conferences right now.
1
Before the Algorithm
What Rain Teaches Us About Raising Resilient Kids
The story of Drip, Drop, and Drizzle — and why emotional intelligence is the most overlooked factor in preparing children for an AI-powered world. For parent groups, school communities, and early childhood audiences.
2
The PATH from EI to AI:
Why Your School's AI Strategy Starts with You
Many schools are trying to adopt AI before they've built the leadership clarity to guide it. This talk reframes AI readiness as a human development challenge — not a technical one. For school leaders, boards, and education conferences.
3
What We Do for Ourselves
We Model for
Students
Adults who develop their own emotional intelligence raise AI-ready kids. A talk about why the transformation has to start with us — and what that actually looks like in practice. For educators, administrators, and professional development days.
MEET THE CHARACTERS
Three characters who teach kids that feelings aren't the problem — feelings are the starting point. I created Drip, Drop, and Drizzle to give kids what I kept wishing the adults around them already had — a way to make sense of what they're feeling without being told to stop feeling it.
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Just as a rain shower starts with a few drips and drops before becoming a drizzle which soaks into the ground and creates new growth, so too learning and confidence follow a similar pattern.
Drip
Cautious, sensitive, and thoughtful.
The one who feels things first and needs a moment.
Drop
Bold, impulsive, and expressive.
The one who acts before thinking and learns from it
Drizzle
Steady, wise, and patient.
The one we all strive to be - and have inside of us.
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