Larae Schmidt

Background

About Larae Schmidt

My career journey has been characterized by diversity of location and opportunities. Having begun in the Fine Arts, a move to West Africa opened other avenues. Living in Niger for eighteen years allowed me to dive into multicultural education. Training teachers to design student-centered lessons, as well as developing curriculum was a joy and a challenge. I worked on a multinational team to plan conferences and seminars as well as modeled lessons in schools. Working in Niger, was a journey in seeing possibilities rather than limitations. Moving to the U.S. and entering the American public school system brought another set of challenges. I taught in a Title 1 school in Omaha in a special education classroom and was blessed to co-plan lessons with the Special Education teachers. Collaboration makes for such a better student experience. From there, I took Library Science courses to move into a teacher librarian role with a heavy emphasis on technology. Having started my teaching career in classrooms with no electricity to now being the champion for all things digital was a learning curve. Teaching the Microsoft package on Macs to upper elementary students opened up a whole new world of creativity. Then our location changed again, but this time to Canada where I worked with post-secondary students as reference librarian. From there, the door has opened to launch a career office. Collaboration, research, active listening, coaching all play a role in this new endeavor.