Hi, I’m Kiersten.
I’m a mom, elementary teacher, piano instructor, and a gardener (who can’t always keep her plants alive).
But more than any of those roles, I am someone who is discovering how to live a full life through the continual pursuit of learning.
Follow along with me here on a Life in Learning to hear my daily reflections on life’s lessons, and also read about my current projects and ideas.
A Life Built in Learning
I’ve never believed life is something that just happens to you. It’s something you learn as you live it. It’s something you build and create and design. The greatest joys I have experienced are from setting goals, learning new things, and feeling the sense of pride in knowing that I was capable of putting my ideas into motion.
In the classroom, I watch some of our youngest students approach the world with curiosity and enthusiasm. At home, I’m learning the rhythms of motherhood, and the quiet joy of raising my daughter and watching her grow and discover. In my own time (after school, in the summer, and during nap times) I’m building, trying new things, creating, completing projects and just figuring things out as I go.
Each part of my life teaches me something different, but it all connects and weaves together to make me who I am.
Teaching makes me a better mother. Motherhood makes me a better teacher. Everyday life teaches me to look back, reflect, ask for help, pay attention to details, and grow.
This is not a DIY-er’s blog, self-help blog, motivational blog, or a day-in-my-life-as-a-teacher-influencer blog–it’s simply a space for me to slow down and document what life is telling me and the new learning I am excited about.
Why I Am Here
I had the idea to create this space as a mom several months postpartum, realizing that I needed to keep my mind busy like I needed air to breathe. I loved the balance of going to my job at school and then coming home and thoroughly enjoying my time at home with my baby. I loved my first summer break at home with her where I got to enjoy playing with her and watching her grow, and then kept busy during her nap times completing house projects, reading parenting books, teaching piano lessons, and compiling new teaching ideas for my kindergarten class. This may sound like a hectic lifestyle to many, but I slowly realized that my mind and body felt happiest and healthiest when in the constant pursuit of learning.
A Life in Learning is a place to notice and write down the new things I am learning–big and small–from daily experiences in teaching, motherhood, home decorating, cooking, gardening, building, basically whatever is currently driving me the most at the time.
I will not be writing the polished version. Not the “everything is figured out” version.
But the real version–the one made of small lessons, half-finished projects, all the questions and arguments I had with AI along the way, and quiet realizations of things to improve at.
I am so proud of the example that I am trying to create for my daughter. I want her to observe not that her mom knew everything, but that she was never afraid to persist at something and become someone who knew a little more tomorrow than she did today. And I hope that helps her grow up feeling capable of anything too.
What You’ll Find Here
This space is an eclectic collection of everyday reflections and thoughts
Motherhood in Real Time
Home Projects, Gardening, and Creating Spaces I Love
Reflections on Teaching
New Ideas, Goals, Plans, etc
Things I have yet to explore