Meet our teacher Jordan
Jordan is a passionate and playful educator who enjoys pondering life's big questions alongside her students. Following her Honours Bachelor of Social Science focusing on Conflict Studies & Human Rights, Jordan began her career developing workshops and programs to support marginalized youth in fortifying and rebuilding their self-esteem and relationships. Through working for Kind Space Ottawa as the Youth Program Development and Facilitator for LGBTTQIA youth as well as for the Black Community Resource Centre (BCRC) developing and delivering programming for ‘at-risk’ youth in the English Montreal School Board, Jordan gained the skills and perspective to understand that the tools of socio-emotional learning were desperately needed in the mainstream traditional educational system as well. Now she is on a mission to blend skill and curriculum-esque learning with self-development and relationship building. As a recent graduate of the University of Ottawa's Global Cohort Teacher Education program, she continues to develop inquiry-based educational programming for growing minds with big feelings who push the limits of the mainstream. Her personal teaching philosophy is rooted in engaging the whole child; mind, body, spirit, and relationships. She believes children are whole, multi-faceted beings with their own lived experiences, ideas, interests, and complex inner worlds. Making meaningful connections and centering student identities, experience, voice, and perspective in her pedagogy is her top priority. No matter the topic, Jordan incorporates lots of dialogue, discussion and hands on activities with a focus on skill building, history, storytelling, and imparting tools for emotional wellness and healthy relationships. She is currently doing an absolutely amazing job teaching language arts, writing, media, current events, psychology and community skills in our older classroom, and our kids love the authenticity, compassion, creativity and abundant laughter and play that she brings to Blue Whale each and every day. Jordan also loves history, political science, making music, gardening, and planning fun surprises and acts of kindness for her students.
Meet our teacher Lila
Lila Ibrahim is an incredibly energetic, creative and positive educator with a recent Bachelor of Education from the Ottawa University Teacher’s Education Program and experience creating innovative and stimulating learning environments for children. She is a highly attentive and adaptable teacher, skilled in using empathy and other social-emotional learning skills to cultivate inclusive and supportive classrooms with an emphasis on inquiry and play based learning. Coming to education through a Bachelor of Social Sciences, Lila has spent much of her personal time over the past decade volunteering with a variety of charitable organizations, facilitating everything from clean up events and recycling training for post-secondary students to leadership and mental health circles for teen girls in her local community and self-empowerment workshops for young women in Rwanda while working overseas for the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences. Fluent in Arabic, English, French and Russian, Lila is very much a team player who thrives within and while supporting community efforts of all kinds, and she is so thrilled to be part of a grassroots non-profit school where community building and outreach is at the heart of the educational vision. In addition to her love of soccer, basketball and all things sports and her talent in teaching coding to children, she is particularly passionate about global issues and sustainability education and is currently the wonderfully fun and super energetic STEAM teacher for Blue Whale’s younger and older classrooms where she somehow combines science, math, coding, sports, art, and drama into something fresh and magical every single day.
Meet our teacher Erica
Erica O’Reilly is a passionate educator with a vibrant background in the arts and arts education that has taken her all over the world. With a Bachelor of Arts with Honours, in Theatre (York University) and Bachelor of Education, specializing in the Artist in Community track, (Queen’s University), Erica loves to blend her passion for creativity, movement, and storytelling in the classroom. She believes that curiosity and creativity are innate human qualities; and when education is approached with a sense of engagement and play, an experience is created and learning is inevitable. Her time working as a teacher in Northern Ontario (2016-2019), not only laid the foundation for her immersive, play and community based approach to teaching, but also inspired her path to becoming a certified wholistic counsellor.
As an individual who leads from her heart, she is incredibly grateful to be a part of the Blue Whale teaching team and looks forward to facilitating learning experiences with the students.
As an individual who leads from her heart, she is incredibly grateful to be a part of the Blue Whale teaching team and looks forward to facilitating learning experiences with the students.
Meet our teacher Marisa
Marisa Yeoman, a former full time teacher with Blue Whale, is now an incredibly valued part of our supply team. She has a Bachelor of Education from the University of Ottawa with the Developing Global Perspectives Cohort and a Bachelor of Kinesiology from Acadia University in Nova Scotia. Prior to obtaining her Ontario Teaching Certificate, Marisa worked in the health and education fields as a clinical exercise physiologist, an outdoor education and leadership instructor, and an early childhood educator. With a personal passion for outdoor and physical education, Marisa has, throughout her teaching career, been committed to facilitating the connection of her students to the many positive impacts of nature, movement, and outdoor experiences. An intensely positive, nurturing, and creative teacher, Marisa understands the importance of building relationships with her students and has a deep appreciation for inquiry based, child led, holistic learning.
Meet Founders Ashleigh & Lillian
Lillian Domin and Ashleigh White are both mothers in the Ottawa area who came together because of their shared passion to create a truly alternative learning environment for their own children. They believe learning should be a joyful, deeply engaging and meaningful experience that allows each child to grow into his or her most secure and confident self.
Lillian is a former teacher with the Toronto District School Board, the Kasabonika First Nations Education Authority, and Ottawa’s Algonquin College. Her specialties have included working with at-risk youth and ESL children and adults, blending learning across areas as diverse as science, civics, drama, visual arts, and English language. She is now the acting director and one of the teachers for the Blue Whale Children’s Centre.
Ashleigh is one of the directors at Blue Whale. She has worked in non-profit, government and the private sector, and as a yoga teacher in Ottawa and Victoria, British Columbia. Passionate about birth and maternal child wellness, she has also supported families during childbirth and postpartum.
Ashleigh is one of the directors at Blue Whale. She has worked in non-profit, government and the private sector, and as a yoga teacher in Ottawa and Victoria, British Columbia. Passionate about birth and maternal child wellness, she has also supported families during childbirth and postpartum.
Meet co-director Nadia Sherstyuk
Nadia Sherstyuk joined the Blue Whale Children’s Centre in January 2018 to spearhead its expansion and the opening of an additional classroom for younger children. Her own educational experiences as well as the wonderful journey of parenting led her to seek out alternatives to the traditional educational systems. Nadia wants to see children to grow up with a deep sense of self-worth and purpose, with the skills and the desire to be life-long learners, and with their innate curiosity and imagination intact.
Nadia is now an active director for the second classroom of the Blue Whale Children’s Centre. Her background is in rehabilitation and women’s health, and she continues to have an active Physiotherapy practice in the Ottawa community.
Nadia is now an active director for the second classroom of the Blue Whale Children’s Centre. Her background is in rehabilitation and women’s health, and she continues to have an active Physiotherapy practice in the Ottawa community.