For the last 15 years, I have been immersed in the world of education: teaching, marketing, and writing. My favorite age to teach? 7th and 8th graders. You know, the pre-teens everyone complains about? Yup. They’re my sweet spot. I love the classroom, and will always make a place in my life for teaching kids. But my interest in education is both broader and deeper than the classroom. You see, growing up as the daughter of a woman who was a Head of School for 30 years, my normal dinner-table conversation as a child revolved around questions of recruitment, retention, school leadership, pedagogic innovation, and institutional sustainability. Family road trips usually included stopping at a few schools in every city we visited, so my mother could tour the classrooms and pick people’s brains. Fun stuff, right?

Yup, I thought so too.

When I graduated college, I spent three years rising in the ranks at a monthly news magazine based out of Chicago. When I started, I was an editorial assistant. When I left, I was the associate editor. I had written 4 education-related cover stories, 30+ articles–many of them on education–and edited more pieces than I could possibly count. I had also run press weeks, proofread enough words to make my head go numb, and cultivated myriad relationships with top-tier contributing writers. But, I ached to return to the classroom.

So I did.

I freelanced for a while after I left the paper, and continue to do so now. But, it’s my side gig.

For the last 6 years or so, I divided my time between teaching Humanities (English and History, except better) to 7th/8th graders and serving as Marketing Director for the school where I taught. In that capacity, I was responsible for all print and digital materials from the school, including internal and external communications, admissions materials, annual reports and newsletters, designing and maintaining the website, and all social media.