featured Speaking engagements
From conference and event stages to intimate podcast conversations, Dr. Es Swihart shares stories and insights that help people reconnect with their sense of worth, purpose, and possibility. Her talks invite audiences to look beneath the surface of leadership, learning, and self-development to see how the stories we carry shape the systems we create.
You can explore recent speaking engagements and podcast features below.
Podcast appearances
In both her work and her research, Es Swihart has discovered and shown that student self-worth and motivation are at the deepest core of the student-teacher relationship.
Enjoy Episode 2 of our Summer Series. Es and I continue our conversation about self-worth, conditional self-worth, and belonging.Hope you enjoy!
Brianne and I are busy working on our Season 5 line-up. In the meantime, we thought we would offer a Summer Series on Belonging and Self-worth. I am joined by Es Swihart. She is a friend, former student, teacher, and current doctoral student doing research on self-worth. She and I have been having ongoing conversations about self-worth and belonging and we thought, "We should record some of these chats," and so, here were are!!
We hope you enjoy this conversation as much as we did. Thank you, Dr. Swihart, for your generosity and wisdom.
On today's show, we talk about something that ALL of us know is so important in our classrooms: relationships. We had such a great conversation with Es Swihart-- a current high school English teacher, Teacher of the Year, and founder of Worthy Self Edu. In this first-ever interview on Regenerative Ed, Es and Sarah discuss student worth, teacher worth, relational triggers, reciprocal relationships, and paradigms we can shift as educators.
speaking engagements
Above and Beyond: Teachers, Society’s Heroes, Keynote Speaker, Sarasota Art Museum in conjunction with the Education Foundation of Sarasota County, 2024
Cocktails and Conversations, Speaker, Education Foundation of Sarasota County, 2023
Impact 100 Grant Awards, Speaker, Resilient Retreat, Impact 100, 2021
Cultivating Wellness with Intentional Community Building, Panel Speaker, Equity In Wellness Summit, Wellness for Educators, 2022
Farm to Table: Support Healing Through a Taste of Historic Florida, Speaker, Resilient Retreat, 2021
Ignite Education Teacher of the Year Gala, Co-Host, Education Foundation of Sarasota County, 2019 - 2021
Workshops & conferences
Spark Minds, Reignite Students and Teachers: STEM’s Role in Supporting Presence and Engagement, Panelist for Project Lead The Way and EdWeek webinar, 2025
Above and Beyond: Teachers, Society’s Heroes; an interactive community exhibit, The Sarasota Art Museum, 2024 – 2025
Empowering Educators: What Neuroscience Teaches Us About Emotions, Learning, and Student Achievement, EPIC Summer Summit, The Out-of-Door Academy, 2024
Relationship Pedagogy – Understanding Relationship’s, Trauma’s, Triggers’, and Self-Worth’s Connection to Learning, Sarasota County Schools, 2019
Brain-based Teaching: Harnessing Neuroscience for Student Success, EPIC Summer Summit, The Out-of-Door Academy, 2025
Leveraging Teacher-Student Relationship to Propel Growth Mindset and Self-Worth, Workshop Facilitator, FCIS Convention, 2024
Developing Self-Worth: Building Relationships by Understanding Trauma, Triggers, and Attachment, Creating a Path to Youth Emotional Wellness: A 4-H PYD Academy on Youth Mental Health, National 4-H Council, 2022
