Meet Tiffany Deschler | Owner/Director at A Place For Wonder

We had the good fortune of connecting with Tiffany Deschler and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Tiffany, can you walk us through the thought-process of starting your business?
I was a public school teacher for 22 yrs, with 18 of those years teaching middle school and the other 4 teaching kindergarten. In 2023, my grandson turned 3 and my daughter wanted to have him start in a program for more social activities.
She and I searched for places with the mindset of open and child-led play. We wanted him to be able to be outside for the majority of the day, be barefoot, take risks and get dirty. There did not seem to be any places close by with those attributes. Most were focused on academics with little outside time. If there were outside time, it was limited to 30 minutes or less and it was usually on a man made surface.
I made the decision to resign from teaching at the end of the 2023 school year and start my own early childhood program focusing on outdoor and child-led play including process art. I started the business in my home and ran it with my daughter.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
I have teaching degree and I started teaching kindergarten after my kids went into public school. After teaching kindergarten for four years, I jumped up to teaching middle schoolers for 18 years. I taught science at Westbrook intermediate which houses a gifted magnet program. In the first couple years I created an elective called Environmental Education. This was approved by the board and began an amazing journey for middle schoolers at Westbrook in Clear Creek ISD.
In the environmental education course that I taught, it was the only one of its kind in the district. Kids learned how to birdwatch, grow and harvest their own food, learn about the native Gulf Coast environment, and take field trips involving community service every year. It was an amazing way to connect with the kids and have them connect to nature.
This was an amazing course but the road to success was not always easy to make it what it was when I resigned. There was nothing but a blank San Augustine field plot behind the school and we wanted it to be the outdoor classroom for the kids. Working tirelessly, donations and fundraisers allowed us to slowly get a shrub or landscape timbers and seeds here and there. After winning a couple awards for Outdoor education, I was able to buy field guides and binoculars and tools for the garden.
The course was right where it should have been when I resigned so leaving was extremely difficult in terms of my emotional attachment to the class and the students. The other terrifying thing was leaving a secure and steady income and leaping off a cliff to begin something new. I only had 4 kids signed up for the next year at the time and the pressure felt heavy. However, I knew I was doing the right thing for my grandson and other children who needed this type of developmentally appropriate setting. We started our first year with 4 kids and are now at 19. We are proud of our hard work and growth.
There is a huge push for early academics in younger children which we consistently fight against in our program. This being said, we struggle with people not understanding the reason (data driven research) why we are child-led with allowance for risk taking behaviors and messy play. We understand that we are not going to appeal to most.
I think we want people to know that our program is based on connection and caring. We use conscious discipline with our kids and they know a boundary can be set and we still care about them greatly. We want people to know that while their children are trying to climb tables and trees and break and grate chalk and jump and lay down in mud, they are learning and we love seeing it.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
I’m not an extrovert and am a nature person so many days would be filled at state parks or the like. We would most likely visit Galveston Island SP, Jocelyn Nungaray NWR, Brazos Bend SP and Exploration Green for nature walks and birdwatching.
The must eats for a guest coming here would be Papa’s Pizza on the Seawall, Killen’s BBQ in Pearland and Viola and Agnes Neo Soul cafe in Seabrook.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I don’t think there is one book, organization or group that could be responsible for what I’ve done but rather a culmination of many on my journey through life. I have had inspiration and support from strong women in the naturalist world, who I am lucky to call my friends. My best friend, Katerina, has always been encouraging with my work with children and been a support with gardening, sustainability and the like. My friend Sheila and I worked together for years to bring gardens in the outdoor world into public school settings. We did teacher trainings together and are still working on bringing those things to the kids in my program now. Stennie, an amazing role model for me, has worked tirelessly in the naturalist field, and has made such a huge impact. We work together to create the junior Master naturalist course through the Texas Master Naturalist group.
There’s 100 books I could probably name that were inspirational, but the biggie‘s were Last Child in the Woods by Richard Lou’s, The Hurried Child by Elkins, Free to Learn by Gray and How Children Learn by Holt.
By far, my greatest inspiration comes from my own children and my role as their mother as they grew. I was both lucky and privileged enough to be able to spend a great deal of time with both of my children, Sebastian and Sierra, when they were young. I was able to raise them in the way in which I was raised – outdoors, taking risks and getting dirty. They were given opportunities to catch bugs and frogs, jump and swim around in ponds, go camping a lot and be allowed to be a whole child. My daughter, Sierra, is my right hand in this business. She understands the value and necessity and what our program does and we love working together and seeing the magic in the children that we support.

Website: https://www.aplaceforwonder.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/a_place_for_wonder?igsh=b2Rtd2R3Ynh3Y2N6&utm_source=qr

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/1FRNWC45CY/?mibextid=wwXIfr

Other: Phone number:

832-205-0479

Image Credits
Tiffany Deschler
Sierra Garcia