Laura Barlow, a middle school teacher from Providence, Rhode Island, has been named the TeachKind 2021 Teacher of the Year. Photo credit: PETA
Many talented classroom teachers incorporate their personal interests into their curriculum. One of these is Laura Barlow, a middle school teacher from Providence, Rhode Island. She finds many ways to incorporate her advocacy for animals into her arts courses. For her work leading students to appreciate the needs of animals, Laura has been named the TeachKind 2021 Teacher of the Year.
Laura teaches a variety of arts classes at Roger Williams Middle School in her school. Among them are visual arts, graphic design, performing arts, and photography. She is certified to teach Special Education and she is experienced at working with multilingual learners, so she is able to inspire students of all abilities and backgrounds to express their creativity to help animals through dynamic instructional activities. For example, in her unit about the interconnectedness of animals, humans, and the environment, she asks her students to create a posters that contain compelling images and a clear message to advocate for change that benefits other people, animals, and the environment. With her performing arts students, Laura reads plays that contain compassion as a themes, and then she leads discussions that connect the plays to current issues, including animal rights and social justice struggles. For example, when studying The Lion King, students research issues that affect the animals in the play, and after reading Random Acts of Kindness, the students discuss and write about ways they can show more kindness toward others, animals, and the environment.
In addition to her classroom responsibilities, Laura donates her time as the leader of Rhode Island Vegan Awareness, a nonprofit organization dedicated to advocating a vegan lifestyle. She writes articles, gives talks about vegan living, hosts vegan cooking demos, distributes vegan meals to those in need, organizes community cleanups, and helps organize outreach events.
As the TeachKind 2021 Teacher of the Year, Laura will receive an animal-friendly gift basket designed especially for teachers, a faux-leather backpack from PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), and a subscription to vegan meal delivery service.
To learn more about Laura Barlow, see this article about her published by PETA.
