Sara Shifrin, Gould Academy
Sara Shifrin is somewhat of an English teacher gone rogue. After 20 years of empathizing with protagonists and their conflicts and dilemmas, she discovered design thinking and began to re-frame what being educated means. A designer of flexible classroom spaces and making studios, she now stands at the intersection of education, design thinking, and doing as director of the Marlon Family IDEAS Center at Gould Academy. She inspires teachers to discover innovative ways for young people to awaken their empathic selves through the power of doing. And for her own doing, she leads design thinking activities with the Gould Academy community, Mahoosuc Land Trust in western Maine and the Tanzania Education Corporation’s schools, in Karatu, Tanzania.