Eelke Marianne Lindeboom-van-Aartsen

Eelke is currently teaching in the Early Years Program of an international school in Ningbo, China. After 9 years of working in the IB PYP EY, she is a mentor to her fellow educators and is an advocate of implementing ‘play-based’ and ‘wonder-based’ learning, concept based and transdisciplinary teaching, and: how to listen to the many languages a child speaks, through its play, its behavior, drawings and other art forms. She has led in-school workshops on her passion: visual arts in the foundation stage.

As the Head of Visual Arts and Aesthetics she has created an art making space that is functional, and attractive for both teacher and student. Her door is always open, literally, and often used as endless on-the-spot-ideas generator. By providing hands-on workshops, such as: how to foster creativity in the primary years; Reggio Emilia inspiration to exploration; children’s ways of expressing through the art; how to use art in daily teaching, she has transformed the way her colleagues’ approach ‘the arts and crafts’ in their teaching and learning.

With a background of Pedagogics, specialized in normal and abnormal early development, behaviorism, and child psychology, she is keen to always put the child in the center of any exploration and engagement. Despite a language barrier here and there, because of her playful and positive attitude, she is loved amongst her many students and colleagues.
Eelke has kept her hunger for learning alive by reading stacks and stacks of books, eager experience exchanges amongst colleagues from all over the world, and physical and online workshops through the International Baccalaureate and the Harvard Project Zero.