Viola Bestmann

Floating Mentor Teacher & Mindfulness Instructor

With over three decades of experience in early childhood education, Viola brings a wealth of knowledge, compassion, and creativity to her work with children and staff.  Drawing from her experience with Reggio-inspired and Montessori approaches, Viola is deeply committed to nurturing each child’s individual development through play-based, child-led learning.

Viola holds a German degree in Movement Education, with a focus in health and occupational therapy. Her professional background is complemented by extensive training in mindfulness, movement, and holistic well-being. Viola is trained in the Mindful Schools K–12 curriculum, is a qualified Workplace Mindfulness Facilitator through Mindful Leader, is certified in Developmental Movement Education through the School of Body-Mind Centering, and serves as an end-of-life doula and yoga instructor.

Viola’s passion for mindfulness and personal growth extends beyond the classroom. Viola is a certified Awakening Joy teacher (trained by James Baraz) and is currently enrolled in the Mindfulness Meditation teacher certification program with Tara Brach and Jack Kornfield.

Viola’s diverse background also includes dance performance and visual arts, which bring an additional dimension of creativity, movement, and embodied expression to her teaching.

Fun Facts:

• Viola spent a lot of time as a child with her grandparents, Oma and Opa, in the countryside, where they spoke Low German (Plattdeutsch) with her.  Low German (also known as Low Saxon) is an independent West Germanic language, not merely a dialect of Standard German.  In Schleswig-Holstein, people greet each other by saying “Moin!” And if you’re particularly talkative, you might even say “Moin, Moin!”