A Life of Learning

J. M. Beach has devoted his life to learning and teaching others how to learn. He has graduate degrees in the fields of English, History, Philosophy, Education, Economics, Policy, Management, Marketing, and Entrepreneurship, which included study across the social sciences, psychology, and the philosophy and history of science and epistemology.

While he was in high school, Beach started teaching in youth camps and Sunday school, and also coaching soccer. After a slow start in college, wrestling with the bureaucracy of higher education and exploring the anti-intellectual, rebellious culture of Generation X, Beach decided to dedicate his life to learning, teaching, and coaching, which included a passion for scholarship, science, and writing.

Beach has taught at every level and in every educational institution: from pre-school and kindergarten kids, to K-8, to high school, including advanced placement and college credit high school, up to community colleges, colleges, and universities, as well as leading organizational training, organizational change, and leadership development.

Beach started teaching in Oregon and then moved down to Southern California for almost a decade, teaching in Orange, Riverside, and Los Angeles counties. He then taught in Seoul, South Korea for a year before moving to Austin, Texas and teaching all over Central Texas, including the University of Texas at San Antonio. He was also invited as a visiting scholar for a summer in Guangzhou, China.

During his long career, Beach also spent more than a decade directing educational non-profit organizations and schools, including 21st Century Literacy, a non-profit Beach founded to promote a more modern and useful form of literacy education.

Beach has a degree in business and has been an investor for most of his life. For several years Beach ran his own real estate business in Austin, TX and did some business development consulting work across the country, which helped him finance his non-profit work.

Currently Beach lives in McKinney, Texas and works hard as a teacher, coach, husband, and father.