My Story
I am a veteran teacher and mom to four gifted children. What I have noticed, throughout my career both as a parent and a teacher, is the significant lack of services for gifted children. Things provided for this population are either piecemeal, delivered by someone without specialized training or experience, or they simply do not exist. While I am aware that there are sometimes options such as special schools, these services aren’t always accessible to everyone. I also feel that the definition of gifted and what we do with these students needs to be expanded. In addition, I have done a lot of work with my oldest daughter, who has significant mental health issues, is on the spectrum, and is also gifted. What I noticed as I met child after child throughout my work with her is that most of them were gifted, too. I asked myself, “why is that?” and came to the conclusion it has something to do with how the gifted brain works and their typical day today experience. I wanted to change that. So, my Center was born.
Personally, I have an undergraduate degree in middle childhood education, a dual masters degree in curriculum and instruction and creative writing, and a gifted education endorsement on my license. I have been published in a couple of places, although brevity is not my strong suit… I have been working on helping people develop courses, and doing some mindset coaching as I also read tarot cards and do human design charts. In my spare time, I love to go to Disney World with my kids, do yoga, cook, read, play with dogs, have adventures, and take part in (mostly) decent shenanigans. I love getting excited about other people’s stuff, because I find that everyone has some magic inside of them.
The Bean Center
Extraordinary students need extraordinary support. So, I founded The Bean Center for Gifted Enrichment and Support to provide gifted services, differently. We work with small groups of gifted students in order to provide social emotional training, deep dives into a variety of topics, and passion project access to address their areas of deficit and soft skill development. We also provide support and training to parents and teachers in order to help their gifted kids reach their fullest potential.