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"Hi, I’m Elizabeth Thuestad. I run Clever Kiwi, and I know teaching is hard. I know because I was a public school teacher for over three decades. But, though teaching is hard, our books can make it easier.
When I started teaching, I taught in a two room schoolhouse and worked with a multiage group of students. From that experience, I learned to let go of grade level assumptions, to really see the children in front of me, and to react to each child as an individual. I also grew to respect the role of the learner in shaping a curriculum, and I was awed by what children are capable of when we share the reins with them.
And it’s this love of supporting originality and empowering students that drives my work today. It’s what informs our thoughtful design choices, and it’s what makes a Clever Kiwi book special and unique. All that to say, Clever Kiwi is a small company with a big heart."
"Clever Kiwi is originally from New Zealand. As I was traveling through the country, I saw the Clever Kiwi books in shops at back-to-school time, and I was immediately drawn to them.
I recognized how kid-friendly the books were and how useful they would be to American students, teachers, and families. So I came out of retirement, worked with the New Zealand company, and brought Clever Kiwi to my home state of Wisconsin."
- Elizabeth Thuestad
First, Clever Kiwi books follow a model of education materials used successfully around the world. This model, called “exercise books,” is used in places like New Zealand and Great Britain, and this model provides a place for students to write about their learning and to exercise their new knowledge.
Second, typical back-to-school supplies here in the United States don’t offer much variety and certainly don’t look like they were designed for children. But, our books are different.
Open a Clever Kiwi book, and you’ll see a variety of paper types, page formats, and line spacing. This variety provides a perfect blend of structure and creativity, and it allows our books to adapt to the individual needs of each student, instead of forcing the student to adapt to the needs of the book!
And it’s our international model, our emphasis on placing the student’s needs first, and the thoughtful, practical details that go into our books that set us apart from anything else you’ll find at Target, Barnes and Nobles, or Wal-Mart.
