Hello! My name is Phebe West. I am married with two children; Ruthie and Theo. Ruthie attends Columbus East High School and Theo attends Rockcreek Elementary.  Both have busy extracurricular schedules. My husband Nate is an Insurance Agent for Zeller Insurance. We built our home in 2010 and converted our 4-bay garage into a childcare space in 2015. 

I have a Bachelor’s of Science in Elementary Education from Indiana University. I worked as a kindergarten teacher from 2006 – 2015 and spent most of that time at Taylorsville Elementary. I also taught homebound students for a year. After 9 years of formal teaching, I knew that what was required of me was not what was best for my students. I encountered children who had no social emotional skills, had never had any type of formal learning, and some who didn’t speak English; yet all were held to the same level of expectations as those who came in ‘ready’. After 9 years, I decided that I wanted to do my part to help this and opened Learn By Heart in 2015. My passion is to teach children at the level they are at rather than the level they are told they should be at. I do this while integrating social and emotional skills that will better prepare them for their academic career.