LESLIE RUSSELL - Creator and Author
As a passionate international educator and coach, with over 25 years of experience, both in and out of the classroom, I've realized the most essential way to create fulfilled human beings is to train our hearts to love. My academic training is in education, psychology and theater having received my Master’s Degree in Theater and Education from New York University in NYC and my Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology from University of California at Santa Barbara. I’m also the President and Creator of Joy Breaks Barriers Coaching and Training Company which specializes in applied positive psychology, innovation, creativity and cultural diversity. My greatest teachers on the Feelings Journey through life have been my five magnificent children who have taught me everything I know that actually makes a difference.
How we know ourselves, learn about others and experience the world, is based on feelings. The brain then uses these patterns of information as guidelines to drive future behavior and determine what level of success we can expect from life. Our feelings are certainly pretty smart!
The Feelings Journey teaches children (and the people who love them) how to honor and artfully manage their deepest feelings: anger, sadness, joy, fear, and love. Both an art and a science, this education happens most optimally during early childhood, before our critical voices, and limiting beliefs mark indelible patterns in our brains.
Working as a Kindergarten teacher in China,a culture with a very different affect than the USA, I was confronted with many cultural challenges on a daily basis. Many of these challenges were dealing with the children in the classroom, but mostly they were dealing with my Chinese colleagues and co-teachers and Chinese parents. Some cultural differences could be bridged, but many differences seemed unbreechable.
The saving grace to our misunderstandings was learning how to uncover the root of our problems, which was always a process of uncovering the truth of our feelings. Feelings speak a universal language. Learning what our feelings were communicating to us on a deeper level was the journey of building loving and trusting relationships, in the classroom and beyond. It was addressing this need to educate my Chinese students, their parents, and honestly, to cooperate with my co-teachers, that The Feelings Journey curriculum was born in a kindergarten classroom in Ningbo China! I went on to teach it to many students, teachers, and parents, across the Mainland and now The Feelings Journey curriculum has joyfully navigated its way back to the USA and hopefully to other kindergarten classrooms across the globe!
Feelings are our first intelligence.
Before we can think, we feel...
HENRY KAHN - Illustrator and Designer
As an artist trained in traditional and contemporary mediums, with an eye for the deeply imaginative, I naturally gravitate to the world of fantasy and children's literature. I have illustrated numerous children's books as well as animation projects in the genre of modern day spiritual fables. Integrating what's impossible to what's possible, I am interested in educating children to believe in themselves, using their artistic talents as the guide to dream big dreams and act on them! I received my Bachelors of Fine Arts from Adelphi University in Garden City New York. I have spent many hours in the classroom as an art teacher for children as well as spent time with the Friendship Circle and Kulanu, teaching children and young adults with special needs.
TAYLOR STOCKING - Musical Director
Taylor is a kindergarten teacher in Ningbo, China. He uses his background in music and creative writing on a daily basis in order to assist his students with the gargantuan task of learning an entirely new, completely foreign way of communicating. He believes in the power of creativity and in the necessity for each and every one of us to develop a global worldview.
