Oh, the irony. In high school, I wasn’t the best student. It was therefore a great surprise to many of my teachers when they heard when I graduated that I was going to study educational sciences. “Education, you? But, you don’t like school at all… ” Part of that statement was correct. I didn’t really like the way learning was designed at the time. And I was convinced that it could be done better.

See, what my teachers missed is that I did love the process of learning. For several years I had been teaching about 6 hours a week for different groups of different ages. It may seem that teaching people to dance is a profession in its own right, but the same principles lie beneath every form of learning. And I really wanted to learn more about those principles.

So in 2011 this brand new student started studying Educational Science at Utrecht University. There I laid a foundation for my career as an educationalist. My interests are broad and that is reflected in the courses I chose. I followed courses on: educational advice, coaching & training, educational design and development, assessment, entrepreneurship, educational philosophy, educational psychology and school organizations.

After a year I decided to immediately put that academic knowledge into practice; I started my adventure as an entrepreneur. Because a teacher asked me “why not now?”.

The next step was that I completed the Master Educational Sciences. During my master I brought a little more focus to my expertise; I focused more on the human side of learning. I took courses on learning in organizations, change interventions, cultural anthropology and philosophy of science. I wrote my master thesis on boundary crossing, entitled: Learning at the Boundary: Teacher professionalization in communities of practice.

During my academic career I did several freelance assignments. Especially my assignment at the Dutch School has stayed with me. There we created a post-initial school for pioneering secondary school teachers. And yes, without a physical school building. There was nothing there yet, so we developed everything from scratch. I quickly learned the importance of a network, dealing with high pressure and the added value of high diversity in perspectives within a team. I developed the program together with my colleagues and I supervised the teachers.

When it came time to enter the labor market “for the real” (read: 100%), I decided to opt for a combination of entrepreneurship and salaried employment. I spent half of my time on freelance assignments, the rest of the time I was a policy advisor at the creative vocational school SintLucas. I learned tons of new skills there:

– I developed into a project leader of a ten-person team;

– I learned the art of facilitation;

– I mastered the intricacies of consultancy (which I am still constantly developing);

– I focused on trend watching;

– and I worked in the Knowledge Pact on the collaboration between ROCs and MBOs in Brabant in the field of educational innovation.

Since the summer of 2020 I decided to completely focus on my own company. I know, peculiar time to do so. During a worldwide pandemic and a pending economic crisis. But when it’s time, its time. And it was time.

People are capable of creating beautiful things. And everyone can contribute to society in his or her own way, in his or her own expertise. However, what we have in common is that time is incredibly valuable. Your time is limited and you can never get it back.

We must therefore use that time as effectively as possible. And when it comes to learning, that does not always happen. That is why I use my knowledge and skills to improve learning in all kinds of different settings. It is important that I use both my scientific background and my experiences in practice. I use my “hard” educational designer skills as well as my people-oriented attitude. With a focus on inclusion.