Jason Martin- Principal Thrival Education
All students are born with the curiosity and creativity to thrive.
Watch Jason’s TEDx Talk- “Teaching Outside the Box” to learn more about his beliefs and approaches towards educational reform.
Educator. Collaborator.
Entrepreneur.
Jason Martin has over 25 years of successful executive and educator experience focused on ensuring educational equity for all students. He began his career as a Teach For America Corps member and taught 1st grade in Trenton NJ. He was awarded Teacher of the Year from his colleagues before helping launch the first charter school in Harlem. After spending several years in policy, consultancy and school improvement reforms, he founded the not-for-profit Community Guilds in 2013.
Through Community Guilds, kids tackle real problems, design solutions, get their hands dirty, and then, with community experts, build amazing innovations together.
To close growing inequities and ensure all kids thrive, he created a vehicle-literally and figuratively- that brings this experience and parks it right outside the classroom door.
STE(A)M Truck, is a growing fleet of mobile makerspaces that launched in 2014, and serves thousands of elementary and middle school youth each year.
In 2021, Jason stepped down as Executive Director, took a much needed sabbatical, reflected on success, failures and then launched Thrival Education in 2022.
Jason holds degrees from Columbia and Rutgers University and lives with his wife and two daughters in a co-housing community and organic farm in Atlanta, Georgia.
Offerings:
Executive coaching and support
Ideation and prototyping youth programming
Apprenticeship and work-based learning solutions
Program support and evaluation