About the founder
An educator who stopped managing behavior and started listening to it
Sasha Heller is an inclusive educator. She saw how public schools manage behavior through compliance, rewards and punishment, and built a better way.
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Her story
Students are far more capable than they are given credit for
Working inside public schools, Sasha saw a pattern. Systems built on tokens, charts and consequences were teaching children to perform for adults, not to understand themselves. She came to believe that students are innately good and want to learn.
So she built a new system around that belief. It asks adults to look after their own nervous systems, build real bonds, and guide children with kindness. She speaks to the adults in the room, and she asks them to stop taking everything a child does so personally. It is developmental, not personal.
Training and practice
The skills behind the work
- Elementary Education endorsement
- Special Education endorsement
- Universal Design for Learning (UDL)
- Augmentative and alternative communication (AAC)
- ASL integration
- Restorative practices
- Translanguaging
Her conviction
It is not personal. It is developmental.
Core beliefs
What Sasha stands for
These are her convictions, in her own spirit. They are meant to start conversations.
- Every student deserves an IEP.An Individualized Education Plan should not be reserved for some. Every young person is unique and deserves growth personalized for them.
- Reward systems have let schools down.Token economies and behavior tracking teach compliance. Students are capable of much more.
- If you are not co-regulating, you are co-escalating.The nervous system, heart rate and anxiety of the adults set the tone for the whole day. If the adults are stressed, the children will be.
- Drop the power struggle.You will not win it, and it is rarely about the worksheet. Most often a child is craving a secure bond with a trusted adult.
- Special education belongs in the shared classroom.Separate rooms create division. There should be times of community and collaboration, and times of individual growth.
- Regulation comes first.Growth mindset and self-regulation should be mastered by everyone in an education setting, with the same emergency and trauma training other emergency personnel receive.
- Teachers should follow their students.One teacher working with a child across several years saves the time lost to rebuilding relationships and knows exactly where that child is.
- Start every day in your body.Emotional regulation, physical activity and sunshine, when possible, set children up to learn.
- Real food in schools.She calls for no processed foods in school, and points to strong research on the link between nutrition and learning.
- The same standard for every adult.Every student and every human deserves respect, and all adults should be held to the same standards. Teachers who have served a full career should make room for current child development research, and no educator should be shielded from accountability for harming children.
Work with Sasha
Bring this to your school or community
Tell us what you are facing. We will start with a conversation.
