I pretended I was a teacher starting at age 5 until I became a real one at age 22. I have taught in many spaces and places: in the woods at an outdoor environmental program, in hybrid college writing classes right when on-line learning was beginning three decades ago, in urban and suburban middle and high schools, in an alternative high school, in small charters and large districts, in Alabama, Washington, DC, and Massachusetts. I joined the National Writing Project and turned my classroom into a laboratory to study how students learn to write. After becoming a frustrated English teacher, I became a school leader playing a variety of roles such as literacy coach, assistant principal, middle school principal of a school in need of intense support, chief academic officer of a small charter network, consultant/coach to state, district, and school level leaders across the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic. I am addicted to learning as evidenced by way too many degrees and certificates: MA in Literature, MA in Secondary English education, National Board Certification in Adolescent Literacy, a secondary administrative certificate from the Center for Collaborative for Educational Services in Northampton, MA. Right now, I am working on my ICF (International Coach Federation) ACC certificate. Currently, I am obsessed with how students learn to read, the neuroscience of how people change, and how leaders build thriving cultures of learning among their teams of teachers, especially when everyone is feeling kind of tired and burned out.