I grew up around schools.

I spent my childhood in eastern Turkey in the 1990s, in places where poverty and conflict were part of daily life. Through my father’s work I saw what a good school and a caring teacher can change for a child, and what a community loses when either is missing.

He wanted a society that asks questions and is free and kind. That is why I went into education.

I studied preschool education at Anadolu University and began teaching in Istanbul in 2008. In 2009 I joined Küçükçekmece Belediye Anaokulu, a large public preschool whose principal, Şükran Evirgen, was developing an alternative model called School-Without-Walls. I helped put it into practice, first as a teacher and, from 2012, as vice principal.

In School-Without-Walls, children’s play and learning move freely across age groups, rooms, and parts of the day. There is garden time every day, and families take part throughout. As vice principal I was responsible for making that work: schedules for 19 classes, coaching for 30 teachers, and 14 staff commissions that ran the school’s operations. The model also had to meet every standard of the national preschool program. That was my job too.

Running it taught me how public systems actually change: through schedules, standards, well-supported teachers, and families who trust the school.

We also ran Traveling Schools, the school’s mobile kindergarten. Buses fitted out as classrooms brought free preschool to neighborhoods where families could not afford it. I managed its operations, coordinated its teachers, and was their link to the Ministry’s systems and processes.

In 2017 I became head of the preschool branch at Şehit Vedat Barceğci Anaokulu. There I built four learning centers, including a community library and a mini-farm, started an internship program with universities, and brought outdoor education to the whole school.

In 2020 I moved to the United States with my husband. Our son was born here, and until 2024 I stayed home with him full time. I learned how early childhood works in a new country from the parent’s side, and what it feels like to meet a system as a newcomer. Many of the families I served in Istanbul knew that feeling. Now I know it too.

In 2024 I went back to school full time, in the Educational Policy and Planning program at The University of Texas at Austin, and completed my M.Ed. in May 2026. My work there focused on early childhood governance: how child care policy, early intervention, and public investment decide which children get a strong start, and which do not.

Since December 2024 I have hosted a monthly Turkish-language story time for children from birth to age six with the Austin Public Library, and I helped the library expand its Turkish-language collection for children.

Technology is arriving in early childhood classrooms and in the public systems that fund, license, and run them. Few of the people building it have run a preschool. I have, for thousands of children, inside a national system.

I want to work alongside the teams building it, in companies and in public agencies, so that what gets built works for teachers, families, and children, including the ones systems tend to miss.

See the work behind this