I have engaged with multiple stakeholders, across a variety of contexts, working to co-create a collective vision...

• Facilitating teams of school district administrators on the formulation of education policy
• Conducting in-service workshops for teachers throughout Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Nebraska on transformational educational practices
• Collaborating with State Departments of Public Instruction to create and implement transformational educational practices
• Assisting in the creation of programs for a Master’s Degree Teacher Education Licensure in Minnesota, and Wisconsin
• Speaking at national conferences in support of transformational educational practices
• Teaching seminars, developing curriculum, and mentoring students in teacher preparation programs

My Professional Journey

My career in educational innovation began early on in my teaching life. During my 17 years teaching in public school classrooms, from 1973-1990, I engaged with my students and co-workers to collectively create a vision. Throughout the years of the 1980’s we transformed our classrooms from traditional Home Economics cooking and sewing labs into dynamic, experiential, centers for critical thinking, focused on the work of the family.

As a graduate student at the University of Minnesota in 1990, I had many opportunities to engage with fellow professionals. We were leading the way to further growth and change for the field of Home Economics. What we taught, how we taught it, and what we called what we did transformed. Here in Wisconsin, it became Family and Consumer Education, and we critically explored what should be done about the issues facing families. We created a statewide supportive network of educators committed to the changes. I worked with teachers in Minnesota and Nebraska as they made similar changes.

I have traveled to consult and present workshops for teachers in Minnesota, Nebraska, and throughout Wisconsin. I created and taught a seminar on Curriculum Development for a Master’s Degree program at the University of Minnesota. The goal here was to prepare future teachers in these progressive ideologies. I have worked at a national level, engaging with others in forming a collective vision for the education of our young people.

I left the classroom in 1990, enrolled in a Doctoral program in Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Wisconsin Madison in 1991, and spent the next four years in research and study. In 1995, my search brought me to the ancient wisdom traditions of India, following the teachings of the renowned Shri Pujya Swami Dayananda Saraswati. This has deepened my awareness and guided me into a vision which elucidates profoundly the human quest for knowledge and self- understanding.

I am now able to provide a vision for education which integrates Western pedagogy and knowledge with Eastern wisdom. This is a vision which honors individuality and creativity as well as community and tradition. I invite my clients to cultivate the capacities necessary for the transformation of SYSYEMS of learning.