Maya Frost - The New Global Student - Education Design - Mindfulness

Maya Frost is a writer,

mindfulness trainer and parent educator.

True to her Oregon roots, she is also a

passionate gardener and budding conservationist.

Maya lives with her husband in rural Uruguay and works via email and Skype with individuals and families around the world.

Feel free to connect!

Goodbye, Old School.

Hello, Bold School!

Maya wrote a book (published by Random House in May of 2009) about how to completely avoid the angst and expense of the traditional path to college.The Boston Globe calls it "funny, innovative and meaningful--a how-to guide with heart."

Learn more about The New Global Student: Skip the SAT, Save Thousands on Tuition, and Get a Truly International Education

Maya's Blog

Maya has been exploring opportunities to live abroad since spending her senior year in college in nine Asian countries. After five years in Japan followed by fifteen years in the United States (with a sabbatical in India and Nepal), Maya moved with her husband and four teenage daughters to Mexico for a year and then to Buenos Aires, Argentina for three years. She and her husband moved to rural Uruguay in January.

Read Maya's blog

Mindfulness Training

Maya has taught thousands of people how to pay attention. Her signature eyes-wide-open approach to everyday awareness has been featured in over 150 media outlets worldwide. She credits mindfulness with giving her the tools to see (and seize!) what matters most in her own life, and she teaches others how to leverage everyday awareness and leap into full engagement.

Learn about her simple, secular and surprisingly playful technique for getting calm, clear and creative.

Smart Education Design™

Maya and Tom are considered the lifestyle design experts for families. They're the real deal: they've launched four daughters--all college grads within the last four years, all happily employed and debt-free--in nontraditional ways. They know the value of humor and offer lighthearted assistance and very valuable advice to parents who are considering a sabbatical or move abroad.

Learn more about Smart Education Design™

Expat Alley

Tom writes a blog for those who are interested in learning about expat life. He's not one of those lifestyle design gurus who just talk about living abroad--he's spent over eight years living in four different foreign countries at different stages of his life. Tom's posts alternate between his personal essays about life in Uruguay and interviews with expats about why they moved, where they choose to live, and how they are making a living abroad.

Learn more by reading ExpatAlley: True Confessions of Expat Freelancers and Entrepreneurs

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Are you a parent

of a middle school

or high school student?

Maya offers this important message just for you:

Dear Thoughtful Parent,

It's a brand new era in education.

Are you letting old ideas block your student's best path to success and happiness?

Here's some great news: Preparing students for their most thrilling and fulfilling opportunities in the 21st-century global economy does not require elite preschools, state-of-the-art elementary schools, high-tech middle schools, international high schools, or Ivy League universities.

Those with their eyes wide open are stepping away from the practice of picking prestige over personal development. In fact, the savviest parents are watching their kids soar by letting go of limiting ideas about what it takes to "get ahead" in the global economy.

If you're looking for a more expansive view of education and you're ready to focus on what kids really need to be skilled, knowledgeable and recession-proof, you're in the right place!

Education design is a game-changing approach to global education. Much like the concept of lifestyle design, education design requires:

awareness of the options available

recognition of interests, talents and goals, and

engagement in the process of choosing the best opportunities for personal development

Students and their parents are learning how to design an exhilarating education by selecting and leveraging the most effective and energizing learning options available. Public or private, homeschool or unschool, online or apprenticeship--there's no need to pick a favorite. In fact, students benefit most by creating a custom blend that maximizes their potential. (Think of it as right learning, at the right time, in the right way for each student.)

Rigor is good, but rapture is way more powerful. We're doing our students (and our economy) a terrible disservice by limiting their options and focusing on a rigid college-prep funnel. Education design gets students digging into the kinds of learning that light them up and allow them to leap forward.

I've written a book to help families get smart about the new world of innovative education. The New Global Student: Skip the SAT, Save Thousands on Tuition, and Get a Truly International Education is published by Crown/Three Rivers Press (Random House) and is available in bookstores across the country.

Though it's packed with myth-busting facts, insider insights and astonishing success stories from students who are doing things differently, my book is also the tale of our family's adventures in alternative college prep.

You see, back in 2005, my husband and I sold everything and left our suburban American lifestyle behind in order to experience life abroad as a family. The tricky part: we had four teenage daughters at the time!

While ushering them through high school, into college and beyond, we discovered some stunningly advantageous and affordable alternatives that are accessible to any U.S. student anywhere--from average to exceptional, from low-income to wealthy, from small towns to big cities.

You'll be amazed to learn how a few simple and inexpensive choices can transform your student's life and dramatically expand his options for gratifying (and yes, reasonably well-paid) work in the future.

Through our Bold School Group, my husband and I teach American parents how to help their kids get a great 21st-century global education that doesn't cost a fortune.

What can we do for you? Well, first of all, we can show you how to completely avoid the angst and expense of the traditional path to a college degree.

no stress about competing with others

no pricey (or pointless) get-ahead strategies

no ridiculous quest for meaningless test scores

no mindless pursuit of achievement for the sake of college admissions

no blind faith in bland "international" labels on applications

Yes, really.

Smart Education Design™ is helping savvy students in the U.S. vault right over their test-weary and fat-envelope-obsessed classmates. While their peers are taking yet another AP course or SAT practice test, the new global students are laughing at the lunacy of the current college-prep mindset and

gliding into the global economy at 19 or 20 with:

a red-hot U.S. or Canadian university diploma

sizzling 21st-century skills

fluency in a foreign language (or two or three)

outrageously relevant experience

a blazing sense of direction

big-grin enthusiasm

and no debt

Good-bye, Old School. Hello, Bold School!

How can you go from old to BOLD?

Start by making choices that ensure that your student won't miss out on the very best chances to excel in the ways that really matter.

If you're ready for a personalized and practical approach to getting an outstanding education without the hassle of the traditional hyper-competitive track, don't waste another minute.

for my FREE 7-day series of e-mail tips

and

learn how you can help your student soar.

I warmly invite you to consider bold new ways to give your kids exactly what they need to pursue their most thrilling and fulfilling opportunities wherever they choose to live. It may be the smartest parenting move you ever make.

Very best,

Maya Frost

head cheerleader

Smart Education Design™

P.S. The New Global Student is changing the lives of students and their families. Read the reviews and learn more about the book here