JeanneSimons

I have a professional background that includes medicine, psychology, neurobiology and K-12 education reform. I am interested broadly in all of those fields, but more importantly in how all of those fields inform one another, particularly in the application of various principals to wellness and the development of a healthy self conception when illness is present. My strongest interest is in reforming education from the top down and includes looking at effective curriculum and delivery, professional development for teachers and administrators, etc. I have state level experience in school reform and currently work as a consultant in school reform, with significant experience in urban districts.

I am interested in communicating with individuals with integral perspectives on medicine and education as well as other areas who have a solid knowledge of the theory and are actively working on finding ways to apply the theory to problems in our society. Although I understand the value of  applying integral concepts at, for example, the classroom level specifically to instruction, I am most interested in working at the school, district, state or federal levels to reform education.

I have been through "hell in a handbasket" to get to this point in my life. Multiple deaths in my family including nursing my mother through her death from emphysema, a devastating back injury, the dissolution of a 23 year long relationship, etc. etc. All important because these life events drove me to search for meaning and taught me personalized lessons about who I am and drove me to find my own answers to my deepest questions.

I have a bit of an interesting perspective on integral theory as I have an undergraduate degree in Biology from Caltech and was rigorously indoctrinated into the scientific ways of understanding the world. When confronted, however, with subjects such as death and pain which are poorly dealt with in the scientific world it caused a great deal of confusion within me- how could I "believe in" the scientific concepts and still embrace spirituality. It was a period of deep introspection for me but eventually I emerged being able to embrace both ideologies without contradiction, develop an unconstricted flow to my thoughts and I am still left with my really cool ability to rigorously break down problems and analyze them in depth when necessary.

This process led me to further my education. I had been working as a high school math teacher in an urban district. The kids came in with terrible math ability- many, many 9th and 10th grade students who couldn't borrow when they subtracted or carry when they added. I was somehow supposed to magically teach these kids algebra. I worked hard and brought the kids up a lot and miraculously most passed the state assessments, but I realized that I needed a lot more knowledge to make a real difference. I read voraciously and eventually found my way to books by Don Riso (enneagrams), Howard Gardner (multiple intelligences), Robert Kegan and Ken Wilber among others. I had already been exposed to a lot of other concepts and authors including Yogananda, hatha yoga, some shamanism training, reiki, meditation (in both the Buddhist and Raja Yoga traditions), Buddhism, nutrition, etc. from which I took away bits and pieces of what I felt was the most effective components to form my own view of the world. I found I desired even more and attended Harvard to obtain a Ed.M. degree in Mind, Brain and Education. This program encompassed many of my deepest interests- psychology, neurobiology and education/pedagogy, adult learning, etc. and best of all I would be able to take a year-long course with Howard Gardner and Kurt Fischer (they created the major) and a half year course with Robert Kegan. That time was the richest learning experience of my lifetime.

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