Welcome!
Posted by Olga Trusova
Father - a star athlete runner, uncle - a track & field coach, mother - a chocolatier?! These two conflicting forces - one that strives to perfect human body and the other that so lustfully ruins it - shaped the person I am today. In fact, one of my early childhood memories revolves around watching my father coach topnotch athletes while my mother made topnotch chocolates. Coming from Eastern Europe, where strict rules and discipline prevailed, my parents' professions allowed them rare creative freedoms, which they passed on to me. What united both was an ability to listen to others - during training or degustation - and a talent for incorporating those understandings back into the process. The power of listening, innovative thinking, and an appreciation for humankind were embedded in my upbringing, launching me into a world where strong passions for education - combined with social endeavors - could become powerful agents of change.
Many years later, after acquiring both extensive professional experience and academic expertise in education and computer science, I found great satisfaction in showcasing my parents' original creative visions through various mediums. From participatory design approaches I used to develop on-line environments for digital artists at the University of Paris - Sorbonne, to creative consulting strategies for assessing the impact of human activities on endangered species at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, I stayed true to that core. While helping teachers and students use technology at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, I embraced empathy, creativity & innovation, and carried them into all of my endeavors.
It all made even more sense when I decided to go back to graduate school at Stanford University to study education, with an emphasis on learning, design & technology. While working on projects for university partners - such as National Public Radio, Shelter Network, and East Palo Alto K-8 Academy - I had my "Aha!" moment. Among the key factors to my success there was the appreciation for and application of what it meant to focus on and create for specific people, to ask for their opinions and to actually count them in. It also made me realize what a unique opportunity education provides; one can use and promote special, yet widely applicable, methods for creating meaningful, far-reaching, and student-centered services focused on the needs of actual people!
At Stanford, I also became a member of the K-12 Lab of the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design. My activities there ranged from creating lesson plans in different subjects and for different groups, to getting resources and materials together, to teaching various design approaches to children and organizing their final exhibitions. The challenges I faced included educating children who had been through domestic violence and/or had mental health issues; the need to show empathy and sensitivity was key to helping them develop "life skills." I then took the skills I learned there and incorporated them into my own Master's thesis project, which resulted in "School-To-Go," a program that helps transitional youth to develop 21st century skills.
