"What would I teach, and how would I teach, if my goal were to best prepare my students for life—the life they live today and the one they will live for all the time that follows school?" Carol Ann Tomlinson poses this question in an Education Leadership article titled "Mileposts of a Meaningful Life". At Edjacent, we constantly remind ourselves to "Be Useful".
Click here to Learn More About Our Mission/Vision
Our courses, products and writing are focused on the following themes:
1. Optimism - the pure joy of teaching
2. Agency - how to take charge of our own destiny and encourage students to do the same
3. Passion - defining and reveling in the things that make our hearts sing, the things we cannot wait to share with others, including our students
4. Resiliency - re-framing our professional obligations so that we can not only cope but thrive within the system or find the best path to leave the system without sacrificing our life's work
5. Community - finding others who care about the things we care about and want to talk about them
If you care about these things too, welcome to Edjacent. We hope you'll stay awhile and find a way you can contribute to this community. Welcome!
Meghan Raftery is a freelance instructional designer for K-12 public schools, nonprofit organizations and the private sector. She leads professional development throughout the country and in her hometown of Virginia Beach, Virginia with a special interest in authentic learning, community partnerships and school redesign. Meghan currently serves as Entrepreneur in Residence (EIR) for Edjacent, an Educator Design Collaborative, Innovation Coordinator for Virginia Beach City Public Schools and Program Director for the CROP Foundation. She is also a wife, mother and bookseller in an airstream trailer bookshop called Read Books VB.
Melissa Smith is a passionate educational leader. Her teaching, coaching, and activism meet at the intersection of equitable SEL, visible and joyful learning, culturally responsive teaching, and anti-racist education. Melissa is currently the CASTL Early Childhood Education Lead Coach for the University of Virginia School of Education and Human Development.. As an ECE Lead Coach, she provides high quality coaching and engaging professional learning that focuses on inclusive, equitable, and anti-racist learning environments for teachers, coaches, and leaders throughout Virginia. Prior to her work at UVA, Melissa served as a teacher, literacy coach, mentor, curriculum developer, and professional learning facilitator for Virginia Beach City Public Schools.
Ms. Smith provides engaging learning experiences that foster personal and professional growth and pushes participants to reimage and redesign their educational systems for equity. Melissa’s approach to coaching and leadership development helps educators notice, name, and disrupt systemic barriers to equity and inclusion within themselves and their organizations.
In 2020, Smith co-founded a group called “Educators United for Equity and Anti-Racism in Schools.” The passionate, action driven group of educations focus on using their collective voices to promote equity in schools.
Melissa believes equity work is best done #OUTLOUD: learning in public, holding ourselves and each other accountable, trying new approaches and working through complex challenges together.
Kristen Hildum, a retired teacher and school librarian, owns a bookshop with her family and it is uniquely situated in a vintage Airstream in the ViBe District of Virginia Beach, Virginia. (Learn more about the shop and how you can order books delivered to your home, including audio and e-books as well as uniquely curated gift boxes for friends, family or yourself here) She is also a founding member of Edjacent, both as a creative inspiration and supporter, and by providing physical space for Edjacent to exist and grow.
Jared Fritzinger is a Civics and Economics teacher at Old Donation School in Virginia Beach, VA. He has been teaching for about 9 years. Before teaching he delivered sandwiches and worked in a mail room while he toured as a drummer in various punk rock bands. He also got a Masters Degree in History with a minor in Political Science from Old Dominion University somewhere in there. He received the 2019 Presidential Innovation Award for Environmental Educators for his work with the EcoBus project and developing a school-wide capstone course for 8th graders. After partying all night the night before at an Iron Maiden concert, he got to meet the head of the EPA. Maiden was cooler. He is married to Becky, who is a way better teacher than he is, and they have a 2.5 year old daughter named Shirley who acts just like Jared. He is starting a blog/podcast called Education in the Wild where he explores and celebrates non-traditional educational pathways and the people who follow them. Find out more at edinthewild.com
Doug Wren has worked in public education for nearly three decades—half of that time as a classroom teacher. He recently retired from Virginia Beach City Public Schools after serving for 12 years as Educational Measurement & Assessment Specialist. Before coming to Virginia Beach, Doug was Director of Research & Evaluation for the DeKalb County School District in Georgia. Sandwiched between his bachelor’s and doctorate in education from the University of Georgia is a master’s of science degree from Virginia Commonwealth University. Doug’s research interests and areas of expertise include assessment development & improvement, performance tasks & rubrics, assessment literacy, evaluating students for gifted services, and children's test anxiety. Please go to https://wrenedconsult.com for more information about Doug.
Mark has been an educator for over 25 years. He has taught in middle and high schools both in the US and UK. An early adopter of educational technology, he has worked as a Technology Specialist and Curriculum Specialist in social studies for a large district in Southeast Virginia. He earned his PhD. in Curriculum and Instruction in 2018 and is now an Assistant Professor in the Department of Teaching and Leadership at Pittsburg State University in rural Kansas. As well as researching and writing about how to best teach future teachers, he also examines issues of professional identity, technology teaching and learning, critical friendship and communities of practice. Mark is also a devoted parent, a lifetime fan of Arsenal F.C., and a self-described “retired broken aikidoka”.
At any given time, you will find Jaime Kurowski either parenting, teaching, reading, writing, wood-burning or fiercely trying to shift the mindset of anyone who needs more joy in their lives. She realized she was a teacher and collector of quotes when she was a 3rd grader in New Jersey. She started her teaching career in New Mexico in 1998 with Americorps before moving to Virginia. She then taught 5th grade, raised babies at home, 5th again, 3rd, 2nd and now 4th grade in Virginia Beach. She didn’t realize she was a writer until her divorce. She didn’t realize how powerful stress was until her stroke. She didn’t realize how resilient she was until she walked herself through the tunnel with the light at the end of it and started a small business sharing her collection of quotes on driftwood art. ‘She Makes’ became an essential outlet to help her prevent the burnout of teaching and help supplement a single income. She is passionate about helping shift the mindset of teachers and students who don’t know how powerful stress can be and has big plans for what’s ahead.
Gordon has been an educator for 17 years. For the first sixteen years, he taught English exclusively to “at-risk” students with the last ten years teaching at a juvenile detention center. He is now a first year assistant administrator at an urban Title I school. The students who are labeled “at-risk” are his passion because they have been slighted for too long, told they couldn’t learn, or any number of other negative things that get stuck in their minds. All of these things can be undone, but only through the hard work of devoted teachers who understand the entire student and all of the events that impact their lives. Gordon is a chess addict, runs a small business with his wife, and lives a family-first lifestyle to the best of his ability.
Parent, military spouse, aspiring educational innovator
BSIE - Georgia Institute of Technology
MEd, Social Foundations - University of Virginia
Annette Conley has been teaching for more than 30 years. Currently, she is the Reading Specialist at Thoroughgood Elementary in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Annette is a lifelong learner who is passionate about finding the balance in education, especially in literacy instruction. Annette has been writing lessons and doing literacy presentations for the VDOE. Follow Annette on Twitter @Amconley49