✦ The Beginning
School wasn't somewhere I went. It was home.
I grew up in the halls of an elementary school — literally. My mom worked there, and I spent my childhood cracking jokes with the principal and losing hours in the card catalog. (Anyone else remember the smell of the mimeograph machine?) While other kids counted down to summer, I was already looking forward to fall.
School wasn't something I survived. It was where I came alive. That feeling never left me — and it eventually became my life's work.
✦ Chapter One
I started with music, because music was my first love.
I began academia with a bachelor's in music education. I taught general music and band for four years at a Montessori school — underpaid and completely in my element. I also spent eight years at a health food store I genuinely loved, because passion rarely pays all the bills right away.
Getting a music teaching job is like waiting for a New York apartment: you have to catch the magic moment when the right door opens in the right spot. I was patient. I was watching.
Swap in: IMG_2889.jpeg
(beaded necklace photo)
Warm & personal mid-story moment
✦ The Pivot
A Monsanto joke. A handshake. A new plan.
Then leadership changed at the health food store. A new CEO thought it was funny to joke about sourcing from Monsanto. I stuck my hand out, said "Sir, it's been a pleasure working for you — but if you think that's funny, I'm not sure how long I'm going to stick around."
And I began planning my way out.
Rather than wait on the perfect music opening, I remembered that music had never been the only thing that fascinated me. I'd always loved the structure, the logic, the hidden beauty in mathematics. So I went back to school, earned my master's in mathematics education, and never looked back.
✦ Paul Duke STEM
Math gets even cooler with power tools and 3D printers.
In 2018, I got the chance to be part of something rare: a brand-new school opening. Paul Duke STEM High School was built around the idea that learning is hands-on — robotics, engineering, coding, design. I wanted in. So I earned my special education certification specifically to land that job. And it worked.
I taught math, and I helped coach the FTC robotics team as an assistant coach. We were total rookies. But we also helped organize several county-wide regional FIRST Lego League tournaments — which meant getting other kids, other schools, and entire communities fired up about STEM. (The school also runs a VEX program, because when it comes to robotics, more is more.) Watching students write code for a remote-control robot, fire up a 3D printer, or pick up power tools to build something real — it changes the way you see math.
It just further proved what I've suspected all along: math isn't abstract. It's the language underneath everything.
✦ Now
The more people I could reach, the better.
Since earning my master's, I've also become certified in special education — because I believe every learner deserves someone who actually knows how to reach them. Not a grad student. Not a test-prep algorithm. A real teacher who has taught the subject, who understands how different minds work, and who genuinely cares.
Flippin' Math exists because school should feel like home for everyone — not just the kids who already "get it." Math has a bad rap. We're here to flip that script.