Derek created the education model of King's View Academy based on his experiences with learning in a wide variety of contexts including elementary-youth-adult; public-private-home; university formal and backyard Do-It-Yourself informal; and his own experiences and many observations of and interactions with the experiences of other learners. Although he has been administering King's View Academy for only 3 1/2 years, the creation of this model spans decades. This was just the start of this education model. It has been improved based on the experiences and inputs of its students and content experts. And it continues to improve.

Derek's background started with enrolling in the B.Ed. program at The Memorial University of Newfoundland to transition his love for Mathematics (and the B.Sc. he earned as a result) into a career. He discovered that he was intrigued by the processes of learning, and wanted to develop his understanding of learning and making sense of the world. Teaching was partial fulfillment of this goal, but continuing to learn was the path. He earned a Master's degree in Information Technology Education (basically learning technology and teaching it to other adults) which led him to a faculty position in a private university in Atlanta, GA, teaching technology to adults (Java programming, website development, data persistence, e-commerce...).

In order to continue his interests in learning he enrolled in the Ph.D. Adult Education program at The University of Georgia, while continuing to teach technology. It was here that his interactions with learning scholars led him to a deeper and wider understanding of the adult learner. Eventually he devoted his energy to raising his family and pursuing the Ph.D., leaving the technology teaching job behind him.

He would never be the same.

Raising children gave him an opportunity to make sense of how people learn as they develop, and the wonderful experiences he had in the Ph.D. program expanded how he perceived and thought about learning. Teaching no longer held any value - learning was everything. To be clear, the idea of teaching only had value as one of a collection of tools within the broader mission of supporting learning and learners.

King's View Academy is where Derek's mission is real and accessible.