Hello there!

I'm Phoebe Yong. I love to inspire growth through stories and conversations.

For the past decade, I have explored the various terrains of the education field. I first started my journey as a student of education, exploring what it means to learn and teach. Then I traversed different landscapes of teaching and learning - from volunteering in refugee and Orang Asli schools to teaching in a boys' secondary school and international school in Malaysia.

After spending years cultivating students in the classroom and growing educators through learning communities, I stepped out on adventure to rediscover what it means to learn and live wholeheartedly. Since then, I've been on a quest to create meeting places where people can come together to rediscover the wonder and delight of teaching and learning.

The Story

'An adventure is, by its nature, a thing that comes to us. It is a thing that chooses us, not a thing that we choose.'

-G.K. Chesterton-

The journey began with a call to adventure.

At the beginning of 2021, I invited students in my English class to ‘cross the threshold’ into adventure. Stuck in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic, we had become disillusioned from learning through a screen. As we entered a new year that didn’t promise much hope for change, I felt the need to use the power of stories and imagination to reenchant my students' world and to encourage them to continue to seek adventure in learning and life, right where they were.

I presented them with three doors to pick from. Each door led to a different story and adventure.

At that time, I thought that my students were the ones who needed to embark on an adventure. Just like the children in The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis who stepped through the door of a wardrobe into the magical world of Narnia, my students needed to be led out of their virtual worlds and into the real world of stories and wonder.

Little did I know that this same call to adventure would soon come knocking on my door, inviting me to step out into the unknown.

One year later, after nearly seven years of teaching in an international school in Malaysia, I came across a picture of a green door of an old English Manor House surrounded by overgrown ivy. That green door seemed to ring a bell… It then dawned on me that this green door resembled one of the doors that I had presented to my students in my English class.

The Call of the Green Door

The green door belonged to a residential study centre in England. Suddenly, I knew that it was beckoning me to cross the threshold and follow the call into adventure. So I bid farewell to my role as teacher and teacher trainer and set off on the journey of a lifetime - to become a student again!

It was there that I encountered the educational philosophy of Charlotte Mason on a relational education. Her living ideas that education is an atmosphere, a discipline and a life really transformed the way that I viewed teaching and learning. It was the educational philosophy that I had been searching for all along!

While I was there, I also met new people from all walks of life who taught me to see the world around me with new eyes. I met musicians, artists, filmmakers, authors, historians, businessmen... who helped me to rediscover the wonder and beauty of learning new things and meeting new people. It revealed to me the delight of a relational education for a flourishing life.

“We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time."

–T.S. Eliot-

When I returned to Malaysia, I started to rediscover the wonder and beauty of Malaysia - the places, the people, the culture... Since then, it's been my mission to share the wonder and delight of a relational education and create places where people can come together to rediscover the joy of learning and life.

Storied Staff is rooted in an educator's adventure of rediscovering the wonder and delight of learning for its own sake.

It is an invitation to other educators to join in on this journey of relational learning and living.

Page updated

Google Sites

Report abuse