Our Teachers
Relationship-led learning starts with the adults in the room
At MindGarden, the teacher is not simply someone who delivers a curriculum. The teacher is a relational anchor for the classroom community, the person who helps each child feel safe enough to engage, curious enough to learn, and known enough to grow.
Our teachers are chosen with great care for both their educational background and the quality of their presence with children.
Miss Carrie
Co-Founder & Lead Teacher
Carrie is the Co-Founder and Lead Teacher of MindGarden Learning and holds a degree in Elementary Education. She has taught with a variety of homeschool co-ops and enrichment programs over the years and brings both professional experience and lived parenting wisdom into her work.
Carrie is a homeschooling mother of three children, ages 16, 14, and 7, and approaches both parenting and education through a developmental, attachment-based lens alongside a non-faith-based interpretation of Charlotte Mason’s educational philosophy.
Her studies in childhood development and attachment come through the Neufeld Institute, where she has completed Intensive I and Intensive II, along with additional coursework exploring attachment, counterwill, anxiety, aggression, emotional development, preschoolers, adolescents, alpha dynamics, and the science of emotion.
Carrie discovered Charlotte Mason’s philosophy while homeschooling her older children and was struck by how deeply Mason’s insights resonate with modern developmental science. Though Charlotte Mason and Dr. Gordon Neufeld lived in different eras, both emphasize that children grow best within relationships of trust, respect, and emotional safety.
At MindGarden Learning, Carrie brings these two traditions together, offering children a rich “feast” of living ideas through literature, nature study, art, music, storytelling, and handicrafts while nurturing the relational foundations that allow true learning and maturation to unfold.
Carrie especially loves the authenticity of children, their spontaneous songs, imaginative stories, and the way they notice beauty in the smallest things. When she’s not teaching, she can usually be found outside hiking with her children, tending her garden, reading several books at once, or painting with watercolors and alcohol inks.
She feels deeply honored to walk alongside families as children grow, learn, and discover the world.
Miss Jessica
Teacher
Jessica brings a background in Early Childhood Education and Development and Sociology to MindGarden. In her own words:
“What I love about the Charlotte Mason approach, and the philosophy behind MindGarden Learning, is the focus on children as a whole being, and how we can support and nurture children in meaningful and purposeful ways, beyond what lies within the textbooks.
My teaching style is very student-centered, involved, and relationship-based. I see myself less as a strict authority figure and more as a team leader, guiding and learning alongside your children as we build a strong, supportive classroom community. I believe children thrive when they feel seen, heard, and truly known. I love building a strong classroom community where students know they belong.
I love to find enrichment where you’d least expect it. I love bringing lessons to life through nature, hands-on experiences, and real-world exploration.
I want my students to always feel they have a trusted, encouraging friend in me. I love the passion and excitement that children have, and the thirst for knowledge and understanding of the world around them. I love looking through their lens to see things how they do.
When I am not teaching with MindGarden Learning, you will find me with my two young children, ages 2 and 4, coffee in hand, usually exploring and playing outdoors, visiting our library, or enjoying outings to somewhere fun like the Creative Discovery Museum.
I look forward to getting to know your family and working together to support your child’s journey this year.”
Come Meet Us 🌱
The best way to know whether MindGarden is the right fit for your family is to see the classroom and meet the teachers in person. Schedule a private family tour and we’ll find a time that works for you.