Love, Morty

Introducing Education Embodied, an online community, coaching, and PD that teaches you (yes, you!) everything you need to know to find ease in teaching, to build transformative relationships, and to take deep care of yourself..

Education Embodied will:

+ Save you time and energy by giving you tools for reflection, regulation, and building a supportive classroom community
+ Help you stay sane and calm when student behavior, excessive paperwork, lack of communication from admin, or a million other things are pulling you to the edge
+ Protect you from burnout
+ Get rid of the overwhelming “I've tried everything and nothing is working!” feeling you have every time you have to take time away from class to handle student behaviors (mostly because it won't happen any more)

Here’s how it works:

Education Embodied is a journey that takes you from feeling overwhelmed, isolated, and dreading every school day to feeling ease, support, and energized and hopeful for each day, with the tools to get through the hard stuff when it happens (because we know it will).

Education Embodied is continuous support throughout the whole school year with short PD videos that are easy for you to follow and absorb when you have time, bi-weekly group coaching calls to be in community and collaborate in problem solving, and a private community with your cohort of like-hearted teachers.

Your school is not taking care of you, and you deserve to have a different experience. Teaching can be about LOVE, JOY, and HEALING if you choose it to be so.

Phew, that was a lot…of awesomeness, right?! Thanks for reading and PLEASE DM me and let me know what part of the Education Embodied you’re most excited about. (And any questions you might have, of course.)

I’ve worked so hard to bring you the best information out there on creating positive, healing classroom culture while taking good care of yourself. And you'll get access to my honest wisdom and learning from 17 years of teaching! WOOHOO!

As teachers, we've taken on too much. We've accepted too much.

We matter. We need to take care of ourselves and each other. Our students deserve teachers who have the knowledge and capacity to create safe and caring learning environments for them.

School doesn't have to be all about control and compliance, discipline and punishment. Students are pushing back and acting out because their needs are not being met by our current system.

No one should wake up every dreading having to go to school, but feeling like they have no choice.

Teaching and learning can and should be engaging, joyful. And what makes that possible is the relationships and culture established in the classroom at the very least, if not in the school.

But that's not taught in teacher training. And teachers aren't given the support to focus on the healing and relational aspects. It's hard when you're isolated and so stressed and bogged down with the latest trend, data, testing, paperwork, etc.

Let's shift our priorities, shall we?

My goal is to disrupt toxic school culture through enabling teachers to show up in fierce radical love for themselves and their students, and have that LOVE, JOY, and HEALING be the foundation for learning.

Then, maybe we can look at the data and testing. But none of that will matter or improve if no one is well.

Teacher-student relationships are set up to be transactional. It takes intention to make them transformative, and it’s so worth it.

How to minimize behavior issues from day one.

Build relationships. Being intentional about building relationships from the beginning is crucial. You need the right skills and activities to make this happen. This is NOT plug and play.

Model the behavior you want to see and set clear expectations. Include students in creating those expectations, through co-created classroom contracts - for them and for you.

Be present and observant. If you’re too in your head about the lesson you’re about to teach or something else that you can’t read the energy in your class and individual students, you need to tune back in.

Greet students at the door. The best way to avoid behavior issues is to prevent them. The better you know your students, the more you can tell when they’re coming in different. This gives you an opportunity to check in before class even starts and set them (and you) up for success.

Teach students about their nervous systems and regulation strategies, and have tools available. Calming corners, coloring books, puzzles, slime, play doh, word searches, meditations, breathwork, yoga. These aren’t BS and they aren’t just for little kids.

Have some fun! Laughter is medicine. Make jokes, play games, be silly. School doesn’t have to be serious and dire all the time.

Read the room and be aware of current events. Be willing to drop your plans if the energy calls for it. We want students to learn, but if your whole class is dysregulated from something that just happened in the community or in the world, the healing, processing, and humanity need to take precedence over your curriculum in that moment.

In general, center humanity and connection. Love, joy, and healing.

Need support? DM me to get more info about the 5 slots I have about to open for 1:1 coaching!

I saw this meme (original source unknown), and these responses, in a teacher group that I'm in. I'm curious what you think?

What if there was a way that you could be empathetic to your students’ experiences, without having to be a trained social worker, without having to blame others, without having to resort to power plays or punishment, even with a large class?

It is possible, believe it or not. It’s even fairly simple (but not easy). However, it requires some major shifts in your own assumptions and need for power and compliance (which was taught to you as the model in education).

This isn’t hypothetical. I’ve done it. Over and over again. And as I’ve gone deeper into my own healing, un-learning, and re-learning, it has only become more important and more simple.

Does that mean that it’s always easy and that students behave perfectly? No, of course not. They’re human.

That’s the piece we’re missing.

We expect them to fall in line. Literally. To do what we say, because we’re the teacher. Speak this way. Sit this way. Don’t talk. No, you can’t go to the bathroom.

And when they don’t, whether it’s because they’re bored, or offended, or their nervous system has been triggered, we better punish them. We’re so much quicker to jump to consequences, and blame the other things and people that have failed them, rather than examine our own reactions and whether our nervous system has been triggered.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s all very complex and there are a million different factors here: from the individual to the systemic.

But when we’re in our classroom with our students, as the adult in the room, I believe that we are responsible for the energy we bring, our ability to stay regulated in our own nervous system as much as possible (which takes a lot of healing work on our own parts), and the empathy we can hold for the other human beings in the room that deserve to be in a space where their needs can be met.

What do you think?

If you’re ready to start digging into this and getting support on how to do this in your own classroom, DM me “empathy” to let me know you’re interested in learning more about how I can help you through 1:1 coaching.

If you are a teacher or work with young people in any capacity, especially young people of color, please go check out and their course. Like now, leave my post and go over there. It's that important.

We all have so much healing to do. For ourselves first, so that we can bring it into our schools and to our young people.

This course gives you a framework - CARMA: Culture, Agency, Relationship, Meaning, and Aspiration - as well as the research behind it, activities for self reflection, and space for community. It is so needed for all of us.

No single one of us can change education on our own. The more we can collectively start to find our way to healing and increase the amount of adults taking a healing centered approach with our students, the more we can start to shift the culture in our schools.

This approach and this kind of work is at the core of my business and how I support teachers.

And if you're not familiar with , this is his work, and you should check out his books and articles too. It's crucial work. So much gratitude for him and Flourish Agenda. ❤️

Teaching is hard. For everyone. And it’s only gotten harder.

There are so many toxic schools and systems, and unfortunately, that also means that many (certainly not all!) veteran teachers have either become jaded or toxic themselves as a way to survive.

New teachers often don’t have the training to manage behaviors, build relationships, and create caring classroom cultures. They are looking at the models they have around them and trying to survive!

You might know, if you really let yourself feel it, that it doesn’t have to be like this. You might have a vision for yourself and the kind of teacher that you want to be.

But you don’t have that kind of support. You don’t know how to get there. Because everyone around you is equally overwhelmed. And some of them, even if they can make the time, spend it venting or giving bad advice.

Learning to be a teacher in a toxic environment surrounded by burnt out teachers can overcomplicate things further.

Who do you have to reflect with? To collaborate with? To check in and make sure you’re taking care of yourself?

Having a person outside of your school who can do those things: reflect, collaborate, and provide care, with and for you and hold that bigger vision can be a life saver. Someone who can frame for you the things that you are doing beautifully, and the ways that you can shift your approach.

If you’re interested in learning more about how I can do that, drop an emoji and I’ll reach out directly.

It can be different. You can feel ease and connection, despite all of the other bu****it happening in our schools.

Take the summer to rest and recharge, but don’t forget to reflect!

The teacher that you were this past year doesn’t have to be the teacher that you are next year. There is always room for improvement and refinement, especially if you are new to teaching.

The summer is an opportunity to be really intentional about the ways that you set up care for yourself and do your own work for your personal healing. You can set habits that will set you up for the school year so that you can show up in a way that is easeful and not worry about burnout.

Take advantage of the space, time, and energy that you have in the summer to consider what kind of teacher that you want to show up as in the fall and what support you will need to be that teacher.

Do you remember the excitement of the beginning of the new school year when you were a kid (if that was your experience)? Getting some new back to school outfits that you were excited to show off. New school supplies. The anticipation of who you could be and what friends you might make?

What’s your grown up version of that? And what if it’s less about the clothes and the sweet grading pens that you scored, and more about who you are showing up as? How grounded in yourself you are? How much you deeply know yourself and your vision of the impact that you want to make? The tools and habits that you have to connect with students and co-create the most nourishing, caring classroom possible?

How exciting would that be? That’s the kind of new school year that I want for you. What do you need to make it happen?

I’m so grateful for the opportunities to support educators in how they show up for themselves and for our students.

We have a lot of work to do, and I’m so excited with the possibilities!

I got to sit down and chat with about my work. And yesterday my team and I got to sit down with leadership at Cincinnati Public Schools to talk about how we can partner with them to support our students and the adults that work with them.

More to come! ❤️