Children are the epicenter of my life’s work.

And yet, in the beginning of my career as a teaching artist, I had very little experience with them.

I adored art, had a brand-new degree in printmaking, and could make a modest living as an after-school art instructor to young Elementary-age children.

So that’s where I ended up, just little ol’ me and a bunch of children who looked different from me, tossed together in a classroom off of 47th and Baltimore in West Philadelphia.

** This is where my transformation began, the lightning-bolts that forever altered my understanding of children and ignited a lifelong desire to work with them and their grown-ups.**

It started with a simple project on our last day of the session: t-shirts and fabric markers. I told the children they could draw anything they wanted; these shirts were theirs to keep. 

A little boy, maybe six years old, drew a gun shooting a person: 

B A N G.

Then there was the time I asked the children to lie on large sheets of paper while I traced around their little bodies. I offered an array of art supplies and invited the children to make their figures come alive.

A timid, tiny child took my instructions to heart and drew herself wearing every vivid color in the rainbow. Around her throat she drew a big circle and, in that circle, she’d scribbled in heavy letters: 

L O U D.

I asked what it meant to her, and she whispered hesitantly, “sometimes I just wish I was loud.”

Moments like these culminated in the defining realization of my life:

Children aren’t just noise-makers. They are

C O M M U N I C A T O R S.

They contain vast and complex internal landscapes and it is our job, our duty, and my personal destiny, to listen to them. 

To get on their level 

and really 

listen.

The actual work that is true for me, down to my bones, is the experience of being with young children in all their creative self-expression, big feelings and endless wonder.

So that’s what I do, regardless of which outfit I happen to be wearing (and I’ve amassed a pretty extensive outfit collection since those days on 47th and Baltimore):

Licensed Mental Health Counselor, state of MA (LMHC)

AMI-certified 0-3 Montessori Lead guide and educator (worldwide)

EEC Certified Early Childhood Director II, state of MA

Licensed Creative Arts Therapist, state of NY (LCAT)

Certified Parenting Coach, Jai Institute of Parenting (worldwide)

“While we try to teach our children all about life,

our children teach us what life is all about.”

—Angela Schwindt,

an Oregon mother and unicyclist