Pembina Trails Collegiate art teacher honoured with Teaching Excellence Award

Congrats to Dawn Knight of Pembina Trails Collegiate (PTC) for being honoured with a Teaching Excellence Award at Manitoba’s Excellence in Education Awards on April 17!

An Art Specialist at PTC, Dawn has spent more than 26 years teaching visual arts. Through artmaking, she fosters empathy, advances social justice, and creates powerful, meaningful learning experiences for students.

In her classroom, Dawn encourages creativity, confidence, and skill through exploration, risk‑taking, and learning by doing. She also leads an art ambassador program that builds student leadership and spearheads large-scale community art projects and installations that connect and strengthen school communities.

Beyond PTC, Dawn is a leader in arts education across Manitoba. She has facilitated more than 150 professional learning workshops and codeveloped key resources, including Art Alive and Resilience with Mentoring Artists for Women’s Art (MAWA), as well as the Grades 9 to 12 Visual Arts Curriculum Framework. An active member of the Manitoba Association for Art Education, she continues to champion excellence in visual arts education across the province.