There is nothing more rigorous than empowering children to try and solve problems adults can’t.

Lesley Younge has been a progressive educator in independent schools for 17 years. She earned her MSEd from Bank Street College and is currently a middle school English and Math teacher at Maret School in Washington, DC. Lesley previously taught at Whittle School and Studios, Sidwell Friends School, The Dalton School, Horizons DC, and The Central Park Conservancy.

Lesley is passionate about interdisciplinary education, experiential education, community engagement, mindfulness and global competency. Career highlights include starting a garden and food justice community engagement program, organizing professional development in Malawi, serving as a Teacher in Residence at the Smithsonian Freer Sackler Museum of Asian Art, and helping found a school.

She is also the author of two books. Nearer My Freedom (co-authored with her mentor, Monica Edinger) is a YA found verse novel that uses Olaudah Equiano’s seminal autobiography as source text. A-Train Allen, her first picture book, was the inaugural Own Voices, Own Stories Grand Prize Winner awarded by Sleeping Bear Press.