We are a husband and wife team here to help you with learning solutions for your family, now, in this moment, with life exactly as it is.
Sara Nolan
Sara Nolan is a professional educator, personal essay writing coach, and practicing writer. She is also a mother (to two under 5), stepmother (to two teenagers) and labor doula. Community and connection are everything to her.
She helps her students use their writing as the perfect vehicle to highlight their intelligence, insights, creativity, and relevance. She teaches writing, critical reading and grammar to students 6th grade and up, in New York City and beyond. She also supports homeschooling families as a consultant and direct-service educator.
Sara’s writing business, Essay Intensive, partners with established New York City non-profits (among them, The TEAK Fellowship and JPMC The Fellowship Initiative) to promote higher-ed and high-caliber education access for all students through their production of bright, strong writing. Her students gain not just an academic advantage, but enduring skills from which to live their chosen lives to the fullest. Over the years, her students have been recognized with admissions to their top choice schools and awarded over 10 million dollars in scholarships. She stays in close contact with them.
Sara earned her BA in Classics and Comparative Literature from Brown University in 2001, graduating Summa Cum Laude and Phi Betta Kappa (She’s a Classics nerd, so she knows what those accolades mean!) and her MFA in Writing & Poetics from Naropa University in 2009. She completed her yoga teacher training certification in 2002 with Alison West and Whole Heart Mentorship with Thea Elijah in 2015. She has taught, edited, and written extensively ever since.
Sara loves so many things, but especially the bottom of a skillet with butter and garlic, imagining the world through a baby’s eyes; Prospect Park, Luminaries featured on On Being & Call Your Girlfriend Podcast, anything by James Baldwin. Her writing has been featured in the NYTimes, Romper, and TeenLife Mag.
John Gonzalez
John is a lifelong learner and career educator. Countless parents trust him to give their children clear and compassionate guidance along with expert instruction and confidence in themselves. He encourages his students to develop their empathy and whole selves in mind, body, and heart. His teaching is focused on helping all students learn how to learn.
John is an oil painter and performing bass guitarist who also draws and sculpts; a teacher, an athlete, a professional parrot breeder, and a father of four. He is an entrepreneur with broad perspective, eternally resilient and optimistic.
John grew up in San Antonio, Texas. His first job was as a swimming instructor at a daycare center. Enchanted by teaching, he has never looked back. He received two BA’s from the University of Texas at Austin in business administration and in fine art, and his MFA from The New York Academy of Art. In New York City, John worked as a private tutor, teaching test prep, English, math, and biology, and then collegiate art. He founded New Amsterdam Fencing Academy, a sport fencing school, in 2001, and then its partner school, NAFA North. John leads a cadre of coaches who have brought his curriculum and his unique approach to hundreds of students throughout the New York area.
John has spent the last two decades living in New York City, raising his children, coaching his students, and training coaches. He is happiest when– any moment now!– his newest clutch of African Grey parrots will be born.