Robin Skeen

Elementary School Program Director, First and Second Grade Teacher

she/her

In the summer of 2014, Robin and her family packed up all of their belongings and moved to North Carolina in search of a more natural life.

Robin received her undergraduate degree from the University of Akron in Early Childhood Education, which included Pre-K through 3rd grade age students. After teaching for a few years, she took time off to be with her two daughters, Ella and Julia. While Robin was home with her girls, she finished her Master’s in Curriculum and Instruction with a focus on reading. When both of her children entered school, Robin returned to the classroom as a founding teacher for a new charter school in Los Angeles. She also worked in an inner-city school in South Los Angeles before moving to Asheville.

In Robin’s class, students become authors, readers, inventors, and entrepreneurs! Her systems help create self-awareness and inner regulation and in keeping with the Essential Learning Skills and the Integral Process of Research and Reflection. She also leads centering to help students connect with their internal world.

For Robin, the most exciting part of teaching at Odyssey is the way that students integrate their subject studies within broader thematic investigations. Every year we learn about cultures, ecology and do amazing projects and IRPs! It is also wonderful to have the space to teach the whole child. We have class meetings to discuss topics that are important to students like understanding each other’s feelings and needs or simply how to share the swings at recess.