Carmen Gamper is the founder of New Learning Culture and the creator of the NLC Model for flow-based, child-guided education. For over twenty years she has trained educators, consulted with schools and learning communities, and supported founders building child-centered learning environments, across the US, Mexico, and Europe.

Growing up in South Tyrol, a bilingual region of Northern Italy, Carmen spoke German and Italian from childhood, later learning English and French. She earned a Master's degree in English and German Literature, Linguistics and Education from the University of Innsbruck, Austria.

Carmen is part of a European grassroots movement of Montessori-inspired parents and educators who co-created innovative schools together since the 1980s, all inspired by the work of Rebeca and Mauricio Wild. She did her Montessori teacher training with Claus-Dieter Kaul at the Institut für Ganzheitliches Lernen in Munich, and was mentored by Rebeca and Mauricio Wild themselves, the founders of the Pesta School in Ecuador and two of the world's foremost pioneers of child-led, active learning. Both have since passed. Carmen carries their work forward for a new generation of educators.

As a co-creator and educator, Carmen helped establish several flow-based schools in Europe. In Wörgl, Austria, she redesigned the learning environment at Schule Miteinander; work that helped the school earn full accreditation. In her hometown of Meran, Italy, she co-created an alternative school in 2003 that has since grown from elementary to high school and recently celebrated its twentieth anniversary.

Since founding New Learning Culture Consulting in 2007, Carmen has consulted with schools and learning communities across the US, Mexico, and Europe. She has served as chair of the Transformative Education Forum and spoken at the California Homeschooling Conference and the Every Child Conference in Berkeley. Her consulting work has brought her to play-based and Montessori schools all over California and the US, to Spirit Rock Meditation Center, Gazebo Park School at Esalen Institute, the Mindful Education Institute, and many more.

At the Huichol Center for Cultural Survival and Traditional Arts in Mexico, she worked with women educators in underserved communities — supporting them in creating emotional safety for themselves and the children in their care, and in seeing their school as a sanctuary. Together they built learning materials from what was already there: recycled objects, seeds, corn, buckets, and sand.

"Flow state makes life infinitely creative and fun, and where others see obstacles, flow makes you see opportunities."

Her companion program, In the Zone With Your Child, grew from the same heart — supporting parents in bringing flow-based learning into their homes and family life.