A New Feature

We are adding a new section to our site. Over the years as we have been continuing our efforts to encourage and support the concept of the entrepreneur in our schools, we have encountered many people who share our enthusiasm. We have had the opportunity to meet with and network with many with similar interests and commitment to the necessary changes leading to better learning and teaching. It is our desire to introduce these new "educational entrepreneurs" to you for at least two purposes: 1. To help celebrate their successes 2. To encourage you to continue your efforts to bring news products, services, programs or technologies to children and schools. This feature will not take the place of our intent to identify the EDUPRENEUR OF THE YEAR. We are right now doing the research for 2011. No, this feature is instead a means to keep a "running record" of the exciting people we are constantly meeting as we continue our pledge to our Mission. We will add them to our site for your information as we identify them. The first two are-Emily Pilloton and Ruth Beauchamp

DESIGN FOR HOPE----Emily Pilloton

A designer, builder, high school educator, and unwavering optimist, Emily Pilloton founded the nonprofit design firm Project H to use creative capital to improve communities and public education from the inside out. Since January 2008, Emily and her partner Matthew Miller have worked to apply appropriate and inspiring built solutions as catalysts for social change. Project H's approach turns much of the design world on its head: "There is no design without (critical) action; Design WITH, not FOR; Document, share and measure; Start locally and scale globally; Design systems, not stuff; Build).

Believing that change begins not worlds away but in our own back yards, Emily spends most of her days in a woodshop with her high school students as part of Studio H, a one-year design/build/community program that teaches design thinking and vocational construction skills within the public school system. Over the course of one year, Emily's students earn 17 college credits in a studio/shop environment, and earn summer wages to build the architectural community project they have spent the school year designing.

Trained as an architect and product designer with a penchant for tinkering and "the kind of math most people hate," Emily is the author of Design Revolution: 100 Products that Empower People. As a non-conventional book tour, she and Matthew took to the road in a 1972 Airstream filled with 40 of the 100 products, visiting 35 towns in 75 days to promote design for good.

Project H's initiatives range from small local interventions (water collection and reuse, architectural schemes for foster care facilities, craft-based homeless enterprises) to deep engagements in the public education system, with a particular focus in Eastern North Carolina's Bertie County, where the organization and its Studio H programming is based. Emily holds a bachelors degree in architecture from the University of California Berkeley and a masters degree in product design from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and owes much of her creativity to a childhood spent in the mountains of Northern California building treehouses. She has spoken in arenas worldwide about the power of design and building to improve life, and in her spare times, enjoys running marathons,and exploring Southern farmland with her two border collies, Junebug and Aidan.

Ruth Beauchamp, FOUNDER OF ORANDA

After nearly 10 years of classroom teaching, Ruth Beauchamp moved into the world of teacher support and credentialing. Since 1999, Ruth has trained, coached and provided professional development for 1000s of teachers and mentors.

In 2010, Beauchamp founded Oranda as a clearinghouse for educational best practices. Her first product, recessitate(tm) is a result of her commitment to engaging learners. Recessitate has 24 color-coded card activities that teach students to calm down, wake up or gear up for learning. Recessitate™ is a classroom and stress management tool that meets national social-emotional, physical education, health and California educational standards.

Beauchamp's journey to create recessitate™ was a three year process and originated from her many classroom observations with either or both stressed out students and teachers. Her expertise in classroom management, background as a health, life-skills and physical education teacher, as well as her interests in teaching the whole child, provided her with the insight to create a tool to refresh students and teachers.

The pilot for recessitate™ was initiated when a teacher associate of Ruth enthusiastically asked to try out Beauchamp's idea. A handful of other teachers with students ages 4-18 joined in for a successful pilot. This success, coupled with teacher and student enthusiasm for recessitate™, encouraged Ruth to move forward with production, which included the following:

Business/Marketing Plan, Branding. Naming. Find a manufacturer, copy editor, artist, web developer, and fulfillment center. Rally encouragers and like-minded individuals. Entrepreneur course. Visualize success. First draft. Second Draft. Third Draft. Final Draft. Copyright. Trademark. Prototype. Bank account. Business license. Seller's permit. Shopping cart. Three years later, welcome recessitate™.

Find recessitate™ and share your educational best practices at www.orandaworks.com.