Eileen Wolfe, M.Ed., is founder and director of leveraged learning, an academic advantage company that provides training and consulting services to individuals, schools, and parent groups. Eileen earned her bachelor's and master's degrees simultaneously from the University of North Texas" Meadows Excellence in Teaching Program. Before founding Leveraged learning, Eileen spent over 12 years teaching in a variety of schools such as Greenhill School (Dallas, Texas), Richardson public schools (Richardson, Texas), the American school on Kwajalein Atoll (Republic of the Marshall Islands) and the American International School in Tel Aviv, Israel. Eileen has spent the past six years studying cutting-edge neuroscience research including the latest findings on the teen brain and is a member of the International Mind, Brain, and Education Society. She is deeply committed to helping families and students create individualized strategies to maximize their school experience. Eileen currently lives in the Dallas area with her husband and four children.
Dear Friends, After 12 years as a classroom teacher in the United States and overseas, the creation of Leveraged Learning is, for me, the fulfillment of a dream. Like every entrepreneurial endeavor, mine has a story. Here’s how it all began:
About 15 years ago, scientists, for the first time, began to use brain scanning techniques such as MRI and PET scans to study the brain while it is thinking. For hundreds of years before that, scientists could only study a person’s physical brain tissue posthumously. So, watching the brain think using MRI and PET scans is nothing short of revolutionary.
In the 1990s, Harvard professors began to see that there was a need for teachers to know what neuroscientists were learning about the thinking brain. This vision spawned a new type of professional conference called Learning and the Brain and a new professional association called the International Mind, Brain, and Education Society. In addition, Harvard was the first to add a new Mind, Brain and Education department to its School of Education. Many other top universities have since followed. I began attending Learning and the Brain conferences and immediately saw the potential influence this new type of neuroscience might have on the field of education. I felt frustrated, though, knowing that because of the characteristically slow pace of change in education, incredible information about how the brain learns best was not reaching more children faster. I kept thinking there has to be a better way.
Like a screen showing two movies at the same time, there was something else going on in my life at this time. I had been teaching at Greenhill School in Dallas, Texas for several years; and though I loved working there, I made the tough decision to stay at home with my children. I continued to go to the brain conferences and help families and children who called me at home to describe their educational dilemmas. Over time, I noticed that there was a common theme. Regardless of the child’s age or issues, everyone I helped seemed to struggle with organization and time management. I decided to combine what I knew about brain research on learning, memory, organization, sleep, and nutrition with what I saw in the struggling students with whom I worked. Hence, my first course, The Executive Student™, was born.
People sometimes ask me, “Are you similar to one of those tutoring places?” My answer is no, Leveraged Learning is not a tutoring company. There are hundreds of tutoring companies in existence in our country today as a result of our societal shift in which children spend less time with their parents while being under greater academic pressure than ever before. I knew I did not want Leveraged Learning to be among those hundreds of tutoring companies.
I offer something totally different. Simply put, I create programs that affect academic success without being academic subjects. When people ask me to tell them in a sentence what my company does, I say, “We teach things that aren’t taught in school…but they ought to be!”
(Soon I hope to be offering a brain research based course on social skills for teen and pre-teen girls.)
The creation of Leveraged Learning is the fulfillment of a dream because it allows me to indulge my two great passions: following cutting-edge brain research, and helping students and families.
And I can’t wait to help you, wherever you are!
Sincerely,
Eileen Wolfe