Today we’d like to introduce you to Christina Pipkin.
Hi Christina, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
My story really begins with my family.
I grew up in Houston as the daughter of a father who was incarcerated for much of my childhood. By the time I was 11, my father was wanted by the FBI, and his incarceration became a defining part of our family’s story. But it never became the entirety of mine. I was fortunate to be surrounded by a village, my mother, grandparents, aunt, sister, and others, who loved me, supported me, and reminded me that my circumstances did not have to determine my future.
That experience shaped the way I see children, families, education, and community. I learned very early that resilience is important, but resilience alone is not enough. People need a village.
I carried that lesson into my career in education. I earned my bachelor’s degree in Early Childhood Development from Spelman College and began my career as an elementary classroom teacher. I eventually transitioned into educational technology, where I spent nearly 10 years supporting teachers, administrators, and school districts across the country with technology integration, professional learning, and instructional innovation.
Along the way, I continued my own education, earning a master’s degree in Curriculum and Instruction with a focus on Instructional Technology and eventually completing my doctorate in Educational Leadership and Technology. My academic and professional journey gave me opportunities to study systems of education while also experiencing firsthand the ways those systems can either create opportunities for children or unintentionally leave families behind.
Eventually, I realized that I didn’t just want to work within education, I wanted to create something of my own.
That vision became FAYE Learning Center, a microschool built around personalized, student-centered learning and the belief that children deserve to be known, nurtured, challenged, and celebrated. FAYE stands for Fostering and Advancing Youth Excellence, and our approach intentionally nurtures the mind, body, and soul. We incorporate project-based learning, creativity, critical thinking, social-emotional learning, technology, entrepreneurship, and wellness because I believe education should develop the whole child.
My personal story also led me to create the FAYE Foundation, which focuses on creating scholarship opportunities for students and families impacted by parental incarceration. That work is especially meaningful to me because I know firsthand that a parent’s incarceration can affect a child’s life in ways that extend far beyond the prison walls.
More recently, I had the opportunity to bring my story and research to an even larger audience through my TEDx talk, “More than resilience: Why every child needs a village.” My doctoral research also explored how caregivers of children with incarcerated parents use online communities to find emotional, informational, and practical support.
When I look back, the different chapters of my life don’t feel disconnected. The little girl who experienced the impact of incarceration, the teacher who wanted every child to feel seen, the educational technology professional who wanted to transform learning, the scholar who studied the systems surrounding families, and the entrepreneur who founded FAYE are all the same person.
Today, I am still building, learning, and figuring things out. But I am very clear about why I do the work: I want children and families to know that their circumstances may be part of their story, but they do not have to be the end of it.
I have lived that truth myself, and now I want to help create the village that allows others to live it too.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
There have been many struggles along the way, and honestly, I think it is important to talk about them because sometimes people see the accomplishments without seeing everything it took to get there.
One of my biggest struggles has been learning how to build a vision while not always having the resources to support it. Starting FAYE Learning Center has required me to think like an educator, entrepreneur, fundraiser, marketer, administrator, recruiter, and sometimes even a one-person operations department. I have had to search for funding, pursue grants, navigate the challenges of finding an affordable location, recruit families, build awareness, and figure out how to make the vision sustainable. There have been moments when I have thought, “How am I supposed to do all of this by myself?”
Funding has been particularly challenging. I know the value of the work I am building, but knowing your value and having access to the resources necessary to bring a vision to life are two very different things. I have had doors close, applications not work out, opportunities fall through, and plans change because of finances. There have been times when I have had to pause and rethink the next step simply because the resources weren’t there yet.
Recruitment has been another challenge. Building a new educational model requires families to trust something that doesn’t have decades of history behind it. I have had to learn how to communicate the value of a microschool, build relationships, create visibility, and remind myself that slow growth does not mean failure.
Then there is the internal struggle; the imposter syndrome. Even after earning my doctorate, having nearly 15 years of experience in education and educational technology, becoming a TEDx speaker, and building organizations from the ground up, there have been moments when I have questioned whether I am qualified enough, experienced enough, or capable enough. Entrepreneurship has a funny way of making you confront every insecurity you thought you had already conquered.
I have also had to learn how to balance my personal life with my professional ambitions. There is no neat separation when the work is something you have poured your heart into. FAYE isn’t simply a job that I can clock out from; it represents a dream, a responsibility, and a piece of my purpose. At the same time, life continues to happen. There have been seasons of financial stress, career transitions, loss, grief, family responsibilities, and the everyday realities of simply being a human being while trying to build something meaningful.
One of the hardest lessons has been accepting that I cannot always be everything to everyone. I have had to learn to give myself grace, to rest without feeling guilty, and to understand that taking a step back does not mean I have stopped moving forward.
And perhaps the biggest struggle has been doing so much of this largely on my own. I have an incredible support system, but there is a difference between having people who believe in you and having people who can actually help carry the weight of building an organization. Sometimes I have been the visionary, the strategist, the grant writer, the marketer, the recruiter, the educator, and the person encouraging myself to keep going, all at the same time.
There have absolutely been moments when I have felt stuck or wondered whether I was failing. But I have learned that struggle and failure are not the same thing. Sometimes you are simply in the messy middle of becoming.
I think back to the little girl who grew up with an incarcerated father and the village that helped me understand that circumstances do not have to determine your future. That lesson has come full circle. Today, I am trying to build the kind of village for other children and families that I was fortunate enough to have.
So yes, the journey has been difficult. I have experienced loss. I have experienced rejection. I have questioned myself. I have worried about money. I have struggled with recruitment and sustainability. I have had moments when the vision felt much bigger than my capacity to carry it.
But I am still here.
And perhaps that is the most honest part of my story: I am not building FAYE because I have figured everything out. I am building it because I believe deeply in what it can become, and I am willing to keep learning, adapting, asking for help, and moving forward even when the path isn’t clear.
The struggle has not disqualified me from the work. In many ways, it has prepared me for it.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
FAYE Learning Center is a microschool founded on a simple but powerful belief: children thrive when they are known, nurtured, challenged, and genuinely seen.
FAYE stands for Fostering and Advancing Youth Excellence, and we serve elementary-aged students through a personalized, student-centered approach to education. Our goal is not simply to help children perform well academically. We want to help them discover who they are, understand how they learn, develop confidence in their abilities, and see themselves as capable contributors to the world around them.
What sets FAYE apart is our commitment to educating the whole child. We intentionally nurture the mind, body, and soul. Our learning experiences incorporate project-based learning, creativity, critical thinking, social-emotional learning, technology, entrepreneurship, wellness, and opportunities for students to explore their interests. We want students asking questions, solving problems, creating things, collaborating with others, and connecting what they learn in school to the real world.
I also believe that education should be personal. Traditional education often asks students to adapt to the system. At FAYE, we are intentionally building a model where the learning environment adapts to the child. We want to understand each student’s strengths, interests, needs, learning style, and goals and use that information to create meaningful learning experiences.
Technology is also an important part of what we do, but we don’t use technology simply because it is available. My background in educational technology has taught me that technology should enhance learning, not replace relationships. Whether students are exploring coding and robotics, creating digital portfolios, working on entrepreneurial projects, or using technology to research and communicate their ideas, the purpose is always to deepen learning and expand what students believe is possible.
But FAYE is bigger than the classroom.
My personal experiences growing up with an incarcerated father deeply influenced the vision behind my work. I know what it means for a child to experience circumstances they did not choose and to need a village of people who believe in them. That is one reason I also created the FAYE Foundation, which is focused on creating scholarship opportunities and support for students and families impacted by parental incarceration.
Ultimately, I want FAYE to become more than a place where children go to school. I want it to become a community, a place where children feel safe being themselves, families feel supported, educators feel empowered, and students are encouraged to dream beyond the limitations of their circumstances.
What am I most proud of from a brand perspective? That FAYE has a purpose behind it. Every part of the name, philosophy, and model is intentional. FAYE isn’t about creating another school that looks like every other school. It is about asking a different question: What could education look like if we designed it around the child instead of expecting every child to fit into the same system?
I am proud that FAYE represents possibility.
It represents the belief that a child can be academically successful and emotionally healthy. That learning can be rigorous and joyful. That technology can be innovative and human-centered. That families deserve to have a voice in their children’s education. And that a child’s circumstances should never determine the size of their dreams.
That is the brand I am building: not simply a school, but a village committed to helping children discover and develop their excellence.
We’d be interested to hear your thoughts on luck and what role, if any, you feel it’s played for you?
I believe luck exists, and I certainly recognize that there have been fortunate moments and people who have crossed my path at exactly the right time. But when I look at my own life and business, I don’t necessarily describe my journey as luck. I describe it more as calling, purpose, and destiny.
I believe there are things that are placed inside of us very early in life that we may not fully understand until much later. For me, that calling has always been connected to children, education, and the belief that our circumstances do not have to determine our future.
In many ways, I can see that calling in my childhood. Growing up with an incarcerated father exposed me to the ways that circumstances outside of a child’s control can shape their life. At the same time, I experienced the power of having a village that refused to let those circumstances define me. I didn’t have the language for it as a child, but I think that experience planted something in me.
Years later, I became an educator. Then I moved into educational technology. Then I pursued graduate and doctoral education. I began researching families impacted by incarceration. I founded FAYE Learning Center. I created the FAYE Foundation. I eventually stood on a TEDx stage and shared a message about resilience and the importance of having a village.
When I look at all of those things together, they don’t feel random to me.
They feel connected.
That doesn’t mean the journey has been easy or that everything has worked out in my favor. In fact, some of the most difficult seasons of my life have ultimately shaped the work I am doing today. I have experienced loss, financial uncertainty, career setbacks, rejection, self-doubt, and moments when I genuinely questioned whether I was on the right path. There have been opportunities I wanted that didn’t happen and doors I thought would open that stayed closed.
But I’ve learned that a closed door doesn’t necessarily mean you’re lost. Sometimes it is simply redirecting you.
I also believe that destiny requires participation. You can be called to something, but you still have to do the work. You have to study. You have to sacrifice. You have to take risks. You have to get back up after disappointment. You have to keep building when nobody else can see what you see yet.
So, if there has been any “luck” in my story, I would say one of my greatest blessings has been encountering people who recognized something in me before I fully recognized it in myself. Mentors, family members, educators, colleagues, friends, and supporters have all contributed to my journey.
But I don’t think they created the calling. They helped me recognize it.
I feel as though I have been walking toward this work for a very long time, sometimes intentionally and sometimes without even realizing it.
Today, I don’t believe I am simply building a business. I believe I am responding to something that was placed in me a long time ago.
And perhaps the greatest lesson I have learned is that purpose doesn’t always arrive looking like a perfectly mapped-out plan. Sometimes it looks like a difficult childhood. Sometimes it looks like a career transition. Sometimes it looks like starting something before you have all the resources you need. Sometimes it looks like a dream that refuses to leave you alone.
For me, FAYE is that dream.
I don’t know exactly where this journey will ultimately take me, but I know why I am walking it. And that feels much bigger to me than luck.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.changemakereducation.com/microschools/texas/cypress/faye-learning-center
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ms_pip/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/1BaKREXjmY/?mibextid=wwXIfr
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christina-pipkin-edd-75a62a9b
- Youtube: https://youtu.be/BJ0aFX7r1PQ?si=jmhQuL4AKCeBdFsG
