About Dusti

Dusti is a former sixth grade teacher, with a Masters in Education from the University of Pennsylvania. The heart of her teaching career revolved around advocacy and trying to help close the achievement gap. She taught in Inner City Philadelphia as a Corps Member with the innovative program, Teach for America. The program places two thousand leadership-oriented college graduates into urban and rural classrooms to assist with a nationwide teacher shortage. Teaching was fun; she loved getting the chance to foster a dynamic, inclusive classroom community. Looking back, it makes sense why teaching was a natural fit.

At 35, Dusti was diagnosed with ADHD. This realization truly altered the course of her life, as it helped her understand so many challenges she’d experienced and it explained many unique personality traits, too! Primarily, it helped her understand why she was so messy (organization challenges and object impermanence + non-preferred tasks make activation hard!!) and it helped her understand why she is a good problem solver (big picture and associative thinking!). She learned about traits like Rejection Sensitivity and Justice Sensitivity. Those explained quite a bit, too. She learned how her brain worked and ways to get herself to finish projects she started, get herself to do chores she hated, build habits she could stick with, and not be so reactive when her feelings were hurt or when she was enraged by the injustices in the world. She also recognized the resilience it took to get through her first 35 years without knowing she was neurodivergent.

Having a compassionate lense through which to see herself was the start of a new chapter. She no longer had to listen to a voice that said “what’s wrong with me??” or “why is that so hard for me??” or “I am so inconsistent and lazy” or “I just have to try harder even if makes me stressed out”. She learned (and is still learning) everything should could about neurodivergence and wanted to help anyone who was in a similar situation.

So, she became a coach to help others learn to work with their brain like she did. Why?? Because that’s what teachers do! They just really like to share information to improve people’s quality of life.

The intersection of Dusti’s teaching experience and personal experience make her uniquely qualified for Educational Advocacy, too. She helps families work with schools to develop and implement 504’s and IEP’s that meet kids where they’re at and helps them be successful.