Welcome to Paula Laurel Jackson's Website

I am a global education strategist, consultant, lecturer, and children’s author with over 16 years of experience working across the Caribbean, Europe, Africa, and North America. I lead PLJ Educational Consulting, advise foundations, NGOs, family offices, school networks, EdTech companies, and multilateral organizations, and teach undergraduate and graduate courses as an adjunct lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, with a focus on intercultural learning, global education, multilingual learners, and creative justice through the arts.

I began my professional life as a classical concert pianist, trained to listen for patterns, nuance, and relationship in every phrase. That discipline now shapes how I approach education systems: as living compositions of people, stories, and power that can be re-scored toward more equitable, compassionate, and deeply human learning environments.

Growing up as a third culture child, and now as a fourth-generation educator, I’ve spent my life navigating questions of identity, belonging, and “home.” A persistent question runs through all of my work:

How can education become a place where all human beings can flourish?

Over the years, I’ve conducted qualitative research in 36 countries, co-created schools and teacher learning ecosystems, developed curricula rooted in local cultures, and advised institutions such as the World Bank and the Commonwealth Secretariat. My current work at Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, focuses on compassion, belonging, and what I call the “relational gap”: the space between pedagogical excellence and the human connection required for real learning to happen, especially in diverse, multilingual, and rapidly changing classrooms.

Experience

My work is grounded in deep academic training, artistic practice, and global field experience.

PhD, University of London
MPhil, University of Cambridge
MSc, University of Oxford

Over the past 16+ years, I have:

– Conducted qualitative research in 56 countries, listening to students, teachers, families, and community leaders about their experiences of school, identity, and belonging.
– Advised multilateral institutions including the World Bank and the Commonwealth Secretariat on education, youth, and global learning.
– Co-created schools, teacher learning ecosystems, and curricula that are rooted in local cultures while building global competencies.
– Founded Kiddify, an intercultural learning platform that connected young people across borders to learn with and from one another.
– Performed internationally as a concert pianist, an early career that still shapes how I think in patterns, stories, and relationships.
– Written as a children’s book author, creating stories that center belonging, joy, and global connection for young readers.

These experiences continually reinforce my core conviction: that education systems must attend not only to what we teach, but to how we relate, to ourselves, to one another, and to the wider world.