Welcome to School of Thought
School of Thought is all about the art of learning and learning with art.
I’ve always been drawn to people and the spaces where curiosity, courage, and connection meet. That pull has become my compass, and I hope it can guide you, too.
As a researcher, writer, and facilitator, my work explores how humans learn, grow, and come together. Through School of Thought, my essays, and workshops, I help people move from what’s expected to what truly matters ~ for themselves, and for a more hopeful, human-centered world.
For years, I’ve explored alternative ways people learn and grow outside traditional structures, capturing stories, mapping experiences, and designing practices that make learning visible, meaningful, and actionable. I’m fascinated by how human connections can catalyze insight, resilience, and collective change.
My writing has appeared in academic journals, Edutopia, Sage Publications, and every week on School of Thought. I speak at conferences and workshops around the world, sharing ideas about People-Based Learning, human connection, and creative inquiry.
While I’m grateful for formal education, I’ve learned that the most lasting learning often happens outside classrooms. I call it learning on purpose, not a privilege, but a birthright accessible to anyone willing to begin.
I live in Philadelphia, PA, where my husband, Walker, keeps me grounded, and my two sons remind me to look up.
In another life, I might have been an artist, storyteller, or wanderer. In this one, I’m committed to exploring what it means to be fully human in a world that sometimes forgets how.
On School of Thought, I share ideas, stories, and practices for those of us who are exhausted by the race to nowhere and hungry for meaning beyond metrics. For anyone ready to trade productivity for presence, perfection for purpose, and conventional rules for human-centered ways of living and learning.
Here, you’ll find:
Provocations that challenge conventional ideas of success
Practices for learning on purpose
Stories from people lighting the way
A community of seekers putting courage over comfort
I promise to:
Honor the real over the performative
Share only what I explore myself
Lead with curiosity, humility, and heart
Offer what I’m learning freely
The maps we’ve inherited are for a world that no longer exists. But with the right compass, we can chart our own path together.
Will you join me?
Learning everywhere is harder than it sounds.
Our culture has taught us to silo learning, to separate the heart from the head, to measure only what fits on a spreadsheet or the report card or the website.
And yet… the things that shape us most?
They rarely fit in neat boxes.
They come as unexpected conversations, off-script moments, and those rare times someone takes us seriously enough to listen, really listen, and everything changes.
School of Thought is where I gather those stories, ideas, and practices so we can learn to spot them, savor them, and build more of them into our lives.
What you’ll find here
✨ The Reader Experience (Free!)
Occasional posts with fresh ideas about learning,
Visuals, metaphors, and conversation starters you can share with your team, your students, your family, your people.
Occasional guest voices and curated recommendations for books, podcasts, and projects that light the path forward.
✨ The Community Experience (Members only; $6/month)
Weekly posts with fresh ideas about learning, connection, and purpose, all grounded in research, but told through stories.
Illustrated stories about learning and living.
Workshops where we turn big ideas into real practices.
Behind-the-scenes peeks at the People-Based Learning book (out early 2026!)
Spaces to trade stories and test out new ways of learning together.
But….who am I?
I’m Jane: writer, researcher, visual storyteller, conversation starter and a mom ⬆️.
I’ve co-created a documentary, a school in Philly, and two people.
I’ve spent years translating big research into real-world change, in schools, communities, and workplaces, and collecting the stories that show how learning actually lives in people.
I’m also the founder of School of Thought, where we explore what happens when we put people back at the center of learning.
In Spring of 2026, my first book on People-Based Learning will be out with Routledge. Until then, this space is where all the ideas, experiments, and connections gather.
Why School of Thought?
Because the world doesn’t just need smarter systems, it needs braver, kinder, more connected humans.
And that starts here: with a new way of learning, and a fresh set of stories about what’s possible when we show up for each other.
For more on School of Thought art, check this out.
Not sure where to start?
Here are some suggestions:
On listening:
On learning:
On leading:
If you are at all interested in my academic research,
Here is one of my favorite publications on a study I did on changes in attitudes and perceptions (not just standardized test scores) as a measure of progress in reading, and
This one on the development of authentic reading assessments and
This one on using natural language processing to develop an edtech tool.
School of Thought provides a space to share how to put research to practice on listening, learning, leading and loving. We champion a spectrum of solutions in the wave of edu-change, and the power of a community that cares to learn with and from one another.
Through visuals, writing, and shared resources, we aim to make our lessons, and other big evidence based ideas, Free, Accessible, Interpretable, and Ready to Use.
Welcome to School of Thought.
Why subscribe?
The School of Thought community is made up of lifelong learners who believe we can change learning in and out of schools, and that change will not always look the same.
I could think of at least 27 more reasons, but maybe the most important is that as a subscriber, you are indicating you care about learning, see it as a vehicle for bettering lives and our world now, and you don’t want to miss a post.
You help me keep going!
I celebrate the voices of subscribers and members.
Join the conversation
Be part of a community of edu-changemakers who see opportunities for learning everywhere. We are lifelong learners, who are called to action in this wave of change in education. Get inspired by big (evidence-based) ideas for learning and let us know how you might use them.
