What Kai-lée Berke is most excited about is finding innovating ways to educate students in their early childhood years.
She stumbled into edtech accidentally. She lived and taught in Hawaii for a little bit, and when she made the decision to move to the East Coast, she had a few job offers to consider. That's when she reached out to Teaching Strategies to see if they could offer some friendly job advice. Little did she know she would be offered a job at Teaching Strategies in that same meeting.
That was a little over a decade ago, and now Berke is the CEO of the early childhood edtech company in D.C. During her time there, Berke has seen the company's definition of innovative evolve and adapt. Now instead of considering itself a publishing company, Teaching Strategies is an edtech company, through and through.
With your teaching background, did you ever imagine a future for yourself in edtech?
If you had asked me that 22 years ago, I would say "No." But I think that in having such a passion for serving early childhood teachers and their families, technology really just emerged organically.
There's such an amazing opportunity for technology to be used, to strengthen that relationship between teacher and child, and that is so important to me. Coming to this company, it was quickly apparent that there was a void in the field, in this area. And with early childhood, in particular, I think a lot of folks in education thought that preschool teachers aren't going to do that, preschool teachers aren't going to be able to adapt to new technologies.
It was a great opportunity to be able to take my core values and create products that support those teachers of our youngest, most vulnerable learners.
There's such an amazing opportunity for technology to be used, to strengthen that relationship between teacher and child.
How have you seen the company grow and change in the decade you've been at Teaching Strategies?
Before 2001, we didn't have a technology product. We've made the transition from publishing materials for the early childhood field to delivering those through technology tools.
So the biggest transformation really has been the growth of our focus on technology. We have an incredibly talented tech team who is able to be responsive and agile and innovative — those characteristics are things that Teaching Strategies has always held at its core. Since 1980, that's what we've been. We were providing that quick response to the field through a print product, and since moving into the technology space and really becoming an edtech company, we're able to provide that now through technology.
Where do you hope to take Teaching Strategies in the next few years?
We have historically had a focus on serving children from ages birth through five — their teachers, their administrators, their families. That's really where our roots began, and it's exciting for me now to be able to take some of the wisdom that we know from working in those very early years and bring it to kindergarten, first grade, second grade, third grade, to the early elementary years.
What we know that is good and right and true for our youngest children, that applies to children in elementary school, too. So with young learners, it's a very common practice to engage in lots of hands-on learning.
Bringing that kind of learning to the early elementary grades, that's where we're heading, and it's an exciting time for us at Teaching Strategies.
Being able to be in the D.C. area and have a voice and be advocates for our youngest children, that's really critical to our company.
Why have an edtech company in Washington, D.C.?
Being able to be in the D.C. area and have a voice and be advocates for our youngest children, that's really critical to our company. But being in the Washington, D.C. area not only allows us to have our finger on the pulse of what's happening with lawmakers but to be advocates for what we know to be right and good and true for young children.
What advice do you have for other entrepreneurs entering edtech?
It is so quickly obvious who is really passionate about what they're doing and why, and who is just chasing an opportunity. And I think you have to have a passionate belief in what it is that you're doing. Find what it is in the world that inspires you. Find what it is in the world that you want to change or make better, and focus your energy and attention more. And from that, good things will come.
