Episode 16: Debbie Millon

Meetings With Remarkable Educators

Debbie is head of Wingra School, whose mission is educating the whole child since 1972. Before joining Wingra in 2016, Debbie was the Head of School for 9 years at the Bellwether School, a holistic elementary school in Vermont.

In the late 1990s, she served as the director of the PlayCare Center, a play-based preschool that celebrated children’s sense of wonder and curiosity. While working at the Mathematical Association of America in Washington, DC, Debbie collaborated with university professors to define novel teaching methods to strengthen mathematics achievement in minority high school students. She also worked in the field of biomechanics, designing prosthetics for children and studying Tai Chi gait in young and elderly adults.

Debbie is committed to using very simple human “technologies”—like listening, speaking from the heart, slowing down, breathing, and connecting to nature—in order to support authentic relationships, a deeper sense of self, an essential shift in consciousness, and aligned living practices. She enjoys exploring new ways to empower and inspire students and adults to gain awareness of themselves, others, and the world around them. Her guiding question: How do we create the conditions for everyone in our community to know that they belong, they matter, they are seen, and their perspectives and gifts are valued?

In this Podcast:

• The opportunities and challenges as Head of a successful holistic school
• Developing and sustaining an emergent, whole child curriculum
• Staff relationships in holistic school
• Parent relationships in a holistic school

Debbie's profile at Wingra School

Click here for a transcript on this podcast