Charles Dickens wrote during the Industrial Revolution and didn’t hold back about the state of public education in his day. Here I am in 2026, back in a public high school by choice and at the precise moment AI is helping us reimagine public education as Dickens and I dreamed. The name fit.
I’m a teacher. I came back to the classroom in January 2026 after 22 years away, and I’m documenting the adventure of a revolution in education — starting now, while it’s still messy.
I'm not the AI expert in the room — but I'm learning. I'm a seasoned teacher with a B.S. in Education and an MBA in Ethical Leadership. I'm also a mother of three grown kids, bonus mom to one, with many years out in the "real world" beyond public ed. Since school let out this year, I keep circling one question: how do I serve my students as AI waves through every facet of our lives?
Here’s what you’ll find in your inbox:
Honest field notes from my classroom, flops included.
Conversations with the disrupters — teachers, parents, and students doing it differently.
The ethics underneath it all — who we want to be while everything changes.
Who we can be for our students — and real stories of how.
If any of that is your kind of thing, subscribe and walk with me. Let’s learn together.
My next post is the longer story — why I left teaching, where I went, and why I came back now. It begins with a line from Gandalf. I’ll see you there.
Stay awake. Stay curious. Stay ethical. Stay human.
— Heather