Jenn Breisacher

Jenn Breisacher started teaching high school history in 2007. Like most new teachers, she was told to stand at the front of the room and lecture. Spoiler alert: it did not work.

When her school mandated student-centered learning with no training and no support, most of her early attempts failed. The successes, however, showed her she was onto something real, and she kept experimenting.

She taught in two very different New Jersey schools: a competitive academic high school and a Title I CTE school. The same strategies worked in both places, which told her everything she needed to know. The problem was never the kids. It was never the neighborhood, the funding, or the demographics. It was the system.

After five years of trial, error, and genuine breakthroughs, she built a student-centered framework that worked consistently across grade levels, subjects, and student populations. In 2018 she founded Student-Centered World and has been training teachers ever since...working with educators in 18 countries, being featured in Business Insider as one of six educational startups making a real difference during the pandemic, and building a thriving community of educators who refuse to give up on their students or themselves.

A historian at heart, Jenn has always been drawn to the stories behind the systems...why things work the way they do, and what it takes to change them. It is the same question that drove her into the classroom and the same one that drives her work today. Though she stepped away from having her own classroom in 2018, she never stopped. Her books are how she keeps showing up as an educator, bringing the same curiosity, honesty, and practical insight she brought to every lesson she ever taught.

Jenn lives in coastal North Carolina with her husband, two children, and two dogs. When she is not writing or coaching teachers, she is on the water, at a sports field, or camping with her family.