Esther at Northside Social in Falls Church

We love Esther. We love hearing her thoughts, throwing ideas to her to reflect back and soaking up her thoughts on how God does what He does in teaching and learning. As a lifetime educator, she will be exploring how the gospel narrative illuminates the disciplines of art, science and history and changes the way we teach and how we learn. 

We hope you can make it to hear and discuss how this impacts all of us as we learn and teach--- and make no mistake, we all do both.  

A Dutch girl, born and raised in Michigan. My first career was in nursing, but left it when I served with CRU in the USA and in Europe for nearly 15 years. I met my husband Charlie Powell while on CRU staff. We've been married 47+ years, and have one daughter. I found my true calling when I went back to school to do a B.A. degree in French. I was hired by Rivendell School where my philosophy of education took off and has been maturing ever since. My M.Edc. is from UVA where I also began to work on a PhD. Over the years, I've taught grades 2nd-8th, served as principal and board member. Through the Comenius (17th c.) Institute which I founded, I've been privileged to train teachers, teach philosophy of education in school settings and develop "Integral" curriculum. I am co-founder of Ambleside and Lorien Wood Schools, and served as consultant to Cambridge School in Towson MD. Charlie's work took us to China for seven years. I taught for three years at Beijing Normal University, and then worked for four years with believers who desired to start Christ centered schools, and to develop a curriculum which reflected a Biblical world view.  Having retired from formal education, I am presently serving in Children and Family Ministry at TFCAnglican, as Coordinator of Elementary Sunday school.

We can’t wait to talk!