Our Story

I’m Julie — an educator, mom, and lifelong learner who spent nearly two decades working in Chicago Public Schools as a teacher, reading specialist, instructional coach, and principal. Over the years, I witnessed both the brilliance and the heartbreak of traditional education: well-intentioned teachers and committed leaders working tirelessly within systems that too often prioritized testing over curiosity, compliance over creativity, and performance over joy.

As a principal and district leader, I saw how early pressures and rigid accountability systems were stealing something essential from children — their love of learning — and from teachers — their sense of purpose. And as a parent, I began to feel that same weight in my own home. The stress, anxiety, and endless, disconnected homework felt misaligned with what I knew learning should look like: playful, meaningful, and connected to the world around us.

So, we decided to do something different.

Our family hit the road — not as an escape, but as an experiment in living our values. Move Play Learn was born from that shift: a space where education meets experience, and where movement, travel, and reflection come together to help us — and our children — understand the world more deeply.

Years ago, my work with Teach For America took me to Alabama to walk in the footsteps of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the many who marched for justice alongside him. We crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge singing “We Shall Overcome,” stood in the Birmingham square where Bull Connor turned dogs and fire hoses on peaceful student protestors, and visited the Safe House in Greensboro where Dr. King hid from the KKK just two weeks before his assassination.

That journey changed me — as an educator, a parent, and a citizen. It filled me with admiration for those who risked everything for justice, confusion at how hate could run so deep, and anger that after years of schooling, I had never truly been taught this history. I promised then that my own children would never be surprised by these truths.

That promise — to teach through perspective, empathy, and lived experience — is what Move Play Learn is all about. Each journey we take, whether across the country or around the block, is an invitation to see through someone else’s eyes, to ask hard questions, and to celebrate the beauty and diversity that make this country what it is.

Along the way, I continue to build and share resources for families and educators who want to keep learning in motion. One of those projects is Active Alphabet — a movement-based literacy system my husband Patrick and I created to help young children learn to read with joy, embodiment, and purpose. (You can watch our You Tube video here.)

Together, Move Play Learn and Active Alphabet represent two sides of the same mission: to reconnect learning with life — to move, play, and learn our way toward deeper understanding, compassion, and wonder.