Rebel Educator®

Marina Vaserman is a Doctor of Social Work and she has dedicated her life personally and professionally to servicing youth in our community. Her background is in the field of mental health, neuroscience, and educational advocacy. She specializes in working with foster youth, children identified as gifted learners, and children with learning differences.    Marina is an experienced founder and board member working in the nonprofit sector with startups and social impact organizations. She consults and runs trainings in the school system including public, private, charter, and nonpublic schools on the topics of inclusion, neurodiversity, universal design for learning, curriculum differentiation and personalization and trauma-informed practices. Marina is a highly sought-after guest speaker for presentations, conferences, workshops, podcasts, and trainings. She is also the founder and executive director of Open Mind School, a prek-12 inclusion school in Menlo Park and the clinical director of Open Mind Center for Brain and Behavior, a mental health and behavioral health outreach clinic. When she's not at work, you can catch her in the local community with her son and foster children exploring trails, parks, and the SF Bay Area.   Join us for this important conversation about eradicating social isolation, creating truly inclusive spaces, and the importance of having supportive communities in and out of schools.   IN THIS EPISODE, WE COVER: Why Marina created the Open Mind School and what het goals are Eradicating social isolation and implementing true inclusion How school leaders and parents can make the mind shift needed to support inclusive learning Why community support is necessary for creating inclusive schools The importance of having a supportive, passionate, and knowledgeable staff and a community to rely on Giving students agency and voice to be changemakers     RESOURCES AND LINKS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE: Connect with Marina and the Open Mind School on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and YouTube Learn more about Rebel Educator, explore our professional development opportunities for educators and students, sign up for a webinar and check out our project library Visit us at UP Academy to learn more about our personalized and inclusive learning environment Connect with Tanya and UP Academy on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram and learn more about her journey here   Check out my new book Rebel Educator: Create Classrooms Where Impact and Imagination Meet: amzn.to/3AcwlfF   Enjoying the show? Leave us a rating and review and help more people find us! bit.ly/RebelEducatorApplePodcasts   We’d love it if you could take a few minutes to fill out this survey to let us know how we can bring you the best possible content:  forms.gle/JcKHf9DHTZnYUmQr6    Interested in being on the Rebel Educator podcast? Fill out this form and we'll reach out to you if we think you'd be a great fit for an upcoming episode. forms.gle/zXR2KGPK3WEmbrRZ6    Want to learn more about opening your own UP Academy? Check out the Rebel Educator Accelerator: www.rebeleducator.com/courses/the-accelerator   MORE ABOUT THE REBEL EDUCATOR PODCAST: In each episode of the Rebel Educator podcast, I deconstruct world-class educators, students, and thought leaders in education to extract the tactics, tools, and routines that you can use as teachers and parents. Join me as we discuss how to shift the classroom, the learning environment, the mindset, and the pedagogy, to resist tradition, reignite wonder, and re-imagine the future of education. This podcast is dedicated to all of the educators who work thankless hours to make our next generation the best it can be.  It was designed to begin conversations on how we can redesign education for the future of work and the success of our students.  It is meant for teachers, students, administrators, homeschoolers and anyone who interacts with and teaches youth.