Brandi Heather
Best-selling Author | Award-winning Educator | Internationally Recognized Expert on the Science of Play at Work
Book Laurie McIntosh, Education Speaker
About This Speaker
Some of the best lessons are taught in the moments between literacy and numeracy. This golden Storyteller, light bringer, and dreamer Laurie McIntosh is a Mama, teacher and author who uses her own personal trauma and triumph to forge new paths and build community connections. As a mental health warrior and advocate, a woman who has experienced loss and abuse and as well as a believer in the process of healing journeys for all, she can speak to parents (especially fellow mamas!), community members and teachers alike.
With the stories she held writing Teachers These Days with Dr. Jody Carrington and her two appearances on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Laurie strives to bring all humans together in a community and to define and exemplify what connection and community truly mean. Golden moments based on kindness, connection, and community are the moments Laurie lives for. With compassion and thoughtfulness, Laurie has an incredible way of acknowledging the accomplishments of those around her and in her community and affirms them as they journey on their paths, cheering them on as they use connection and relationships to revolutionize their lives.
What people are saying about Laurie
Laurie delivered an incredible session. I felt seen and heard by a teacher in the trenches with me. I laughed, I cried. I took so much away. Would definitely have her back!
– Attendee, ECEC Conference
Laurie's booking fee range is $5,000 - $10,000
Contact an agent to get Laurie's availability and ratesSpeaking Topics: Laurie McIntosh
The Work Beneath the Work: Reconnecting Educators to What Matters Most 
Today’s educators are being asked to do more than ever: support complex learners, manage behaviour, build inclusive classrooms, respond to emotional needs, and protect their own well-being along the way. In this honest, hopeful, and deeply practical keynote, Laurie MacIntosh helps educators return to the human foundation underneath great teaching: connection, regulation, community, curiosity, and sustainable practice.
As a current educator working inside today’s classrooms, Laurie brings credibility that is lived, not theoretical. She understands the pressure educators are carrying, the realities of diverse school communities, and the quiet exhaustion many teachers and leaders are navigating. As an Author, she explores these topics in depth through her research, curiosity and a deep care. With warmth, humour, and practical insight, she helps audiences move beyond compliance-based thinking and toward relationship-centred classrooms where both students and adults feel safe, seen, and capable of meaningful growth.
This session gives educators permission to stop chasing perfection and start focusing on what actually creates impact. Through stories, reflection, and immediately usable strategies, Laurie equips teachers and school leaders to strengthen classroom community, support emotional regulation, rebuild joy, and create healthier school cultures without adding more to already-full plates. Educators leave feeling understood, re-energized, and reminded that connection is not extra work - it is the work.
As a current educator working inside today’s classrooms, Laurie brings credibility that is lived, not theoretical. She understands the pressure educators are carrying, the realities of diverse school communities, and the quiet exhaustion many teachers and leaders are navigating. As an Author, she explores these topics in depth through her research, curiosity and a deep care. With warmth, humour, and practical insight, she helps audiences move beyond compliance-based thinking and toward relationship-centred classrooms where both students and adults feel safe, seen, and capable of meaningful growth.
This session gives educators permission to stop chasing perfection and start focusing on what actually creates impact. Through stories, reflection, and immediately usable strategies, Laurie equips teachers and school leaders to strengthen classroom community, support emotional regulation, rebuild joy, and create healthier school cultures without adding more to already-full plates. Educators leave feeling understood, re-energized, and reminded that connection is not extra work - it is the work.
Still Here, Still Human: Teaching with Connection, Clarity, and Care
Today’s classrooms are complex, emotional, and constantly changing. Educators are navigating big behaviours, diverse learning needs, family expectations, curriculum pressures, and students arriving with more on their hearts and minds than ever before. In this practical and relatable keynote, Laurie MacIntosh helps educators return to three classroom essentials that make teaching more effective and learning more possible: connection, clarity, and care.
As a current educator working inside today’s schools, Laurie brings a grounded understanding of what actually works in real classrooms. This session offers practical strategies educators can use immediately to create calmer routines, stronger relationships, more responsive learning environments, and classroom communities where students feel safe enough to participate, take risks, and grow.
Through humour, story, reflection, and practical examples, Laurie explores how small shifts in language, structure, transitions, expectations, play, student voice, and co-regulation can create meaningful change. Educators will learn how to build connection without losing authority, offer clarity without becoming rigid, and lead with care without lowering expectations.
Key Takeaways:
• Build connections quickly and consistently, especially with students who are hardest to reach.
• Use routines and language shifts that create clarity, reduce confusion, and support smoother transitions.
• Respond to behaviour through regulation, relationship, and skill-building rather than reaction or control.
• Increase student voice, curiosity, play, and participation without losing structure.
• Create classrooms where students feel safe, seen, supported, and accountable.
As a current educator working inside today’s schools, Laurie brings a grounded understanding of what actually works in real classrooms. This session offers practical strategies educators can use immediately to create calmer routines, stronger relationships, more responsive learning environments, and classroom communities where students feel safe enough to participate, take risks, and grow.
Through humour, story, reflection, and practical examples, Laurie explores how small shifts in language, structure, transitions, expectations, play, student voice, and co-regulation can create meaningful change. Educators will learn how to build connection without losing authority, offer clarity without becoming rigid, and lead with care without lowering expectations.
Key Takeaways:
• Build connections quickly and consistently, especially with students who are hardest to reach.
• Use routines and language shifts that create clarity, reduce confusion, and support smoother transitions.
• Respond to behaviour through regulation, relationship, and skill-building rather than reaction or control.
• Increase student voice, curiosity, play, and participation without losing structure.
• Create classrooms where students feel safe, seen, supported, and accountable.
A Teachers' Legacy: What Brought Us Here, and Where Are We Going?
Based on the bestselling book ‘Teachers These Days’ by Laurie McIntosh and Dr. Jody Carrington, Laurie will hold a discussion and reflection around what we have been taught is a “good” teacher. We will examine in depth the stories we have been told about what makes a successful teacher, what elements within our teacher culture need to change and spend time discussing safe places to land in these trying times. This session is all about the connection. Teachers can expect to leave with strategies especially surrounding connection to themselves, their school community, their learners and the families they serve.
What people will remember most about you, your legacy will have so much more to do with a felt sense than it ever will with words or numbers. It will remind our teachers that their job is to shine the incredible light that brought them into this profession in the first place. It will remind them that whatever you got on any given day is (more than) enough, which is something all teachers deserve to hear right now.
What people will remember most about you, your legacy will have so much more to do with a felt sense than it ever will with words or numbers. It will remind our teachers that their job is to shine the incredible light that brought them into this profession in the first place. It will remind them that whatever you got on any given day is (more than) enough, which is something all teachers deserve to hear right now.
Why Kindness?
We will be examining definitions of kindness and how “helpers high” (a term coined by Stuart Shanker) can bring us closer together in a classroom, in our communities and in our staff rooms. Based on Laurie’s two appearances on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, we will deeply examine what is means to be seen, heard and acknowledged with kindness in our communities.
Led by Laurie McIntosh, we will be examining definitions of kindness and how “helpers high” can bring us closer together in a classroom, in our communities and in our staff rooms. Infused with strategies and activity ideas surrounding connection to be used in our schools, we will dive into why kindness matters now more than ever.
Now, more than ever, kindness is key to connection and relationships with our learners, colleagues and ourselves. Learn strategies and practices to infuse kindness into every day.
Led by Laurie McIntosh, we will be examining definitions of kindness and how “helpers high” can bring us closer together in a classroom, in our communities and in our staff rooms. Infused with strategies and activity ideas surrounding connection to be used in our schools, we will dive into why kindness matters now more than ever.
Now, more than ever, kindness is key to connection and relationships with our learners, colleagues and ourselves. Learn strategies and practices to infuse kindness into every day.
Trauma and Triumph: How Our Own Personal Stories Affect Teachers in the Classroom
Our own stories and journeys of triumph and trauma affect all we do and how we show up in our classrooms. This session will focus on reflection, stories and affirmation as we discuss the need to acknowledge our real and valid feelings in this “heart work”. From loss to trauma to relationships, we will look at how it all comes together in our identity as an educator and how YOU are more than enough.
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