TEACHING FOR CREATIVITY

A LITTLE BIT ABOUT ME

Laura Schindel, OCT

I am a History and Art teacher currently working as an Occasional Teacher in Limestone District School Board. I grew up in Toronto and completed the Queen’s-Trent Concurrent Education Program, graduating from the Queen's Faculty of Education in 2018 with my Bachelor of Education, and from Trent University in 2017 with a Bachelor of Arts Honours in History spent 2018-2018. Most recently, I spent the 2018-2019 academic year working at an IES in Halmstad Sweden teaching art to years 5 – 9.
Teaching is my passion and I am happiest in the art studio. I believe that when we provide students with challenging and fulfilling environments where they feel safe to try new things, students not only produce their best work, but they actively take part in their own education. I think that championing creativity is my greatest responsibility as an art teacher. Creativity and abstract thought are what make us human and they are the most important piece of knowledge I can leave with my students. In addition to creativity, I think that art as a subject, has an innate ability to teach resiliency and perseverance in a way unlike any other subject. The art room welcomes failures and accidents, we create together and everything can be fixed or reworked. I love learning alongside my students and helping them grow into strong, resilient, creative humans.
Currently I’m working on building my teaching portfolio with Additional Qualifications Courses and building my artistic portfolio with more painting and other new creative pursuits.