Dr. Wottawa's Educational Blog

     This post was an obvious decision for me as a teacher, leader, and parent.  Empathy is a characteristic that drives us as humans to listen carefully to one another, try to understand another's perspective, and grow together as individuals and within the relationship with others.  All people walk into our lives with various experiences (negative and positive); and these experiences impact our judgments, operating with an empathetic lens opens communication, shows kindness, and ultimately builds trust.      As teachers, our students enter our classrooms from a plethora of home situations, parental concerns, and social pressures that impact how they function in our difficult world.  Simply greeting our students at the door with a caring smile and a welcoming "Good Morning, Are you ready for a great day of learning?" Can really set the tone for the day.  This sounds easy... well empathy is hard and takes time to develop; in fact it is a skill developed through tacit kno

     When I hear the word "diversity" I immediately think about ethnicity, culture, and the acceptance of our differences.  In addition, we can engage students in diverse activities, lessons, and projects that promote divergent thinking .  Lastly, we have diverse learners within our classrooms; where, some may have IEPs, special circumstances, and/or have a learning style preference.      At a recent EdCamp  on Long Island there were many discussions and presentations centering around " soft skills " that prepare children for life.  A cyclic trend of Project Based Learning (PBL) has returned and engages students in the use of a range of soft skills to solve diverse problems where students develop divergent thinking skills and practices.  The bottom line, create an educational climate that allows children to engage in diverse learning experiences.  A simple example would be to allow student choice for homework assignments.      As a teacher we are responsible to &q

     When taking notes to write this post, I composed a list of "C" words that mean a great deal to me as a person, teacher, and leader.  However when reviewing the list, "Courageous" is the one word that I could not link with another that has such meaning for our students and teachers.  In order to support risk-taking within our classroom we should be courageous when developing lessons or setting up our classroom layout, and we need leaders that support these courageous behaviors because it can support critical thinking, a growth mindset, and inspire learning.      This school year my youngest daughter started the fourth grade and over the summer she was very excited to learn that she had Mrs. A.  My older daughter began middle school and when we asked her about Mrs. A, she explained several "out of the box" ideas and different teaching methods that she heard her friends speak about in the past.  We were intrigued and could not wait for open school night