ABOUT THIS EPISODE:
Hello and welcome back to Connect FCS Ed, I am your host Barbara Scully. Thank you so much for joining me today!
On today’s episode, I am thrilled to share with you my interview with Elissa Widomski. Elissa also teaches Family Consumer Sciences in Central New York.
Elissa has a masters in Information Design and Technology and has been in her district for 11 years. Having taught some high school electives, she is currently teaching grades 7 and 8 as an intro to FCS and I also teaches a special in elementary schools focused on career exploration.
LEARN MORE ABOUT THE CONTENT DISCUSSED…
• FCS Podcast: https://fcspodcast.com
• FCS Tips: https://www.fcstips.com
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KEYNOTES DISCUSSED:
• The third year after I had pushed so hard, they were like, you need to find other FCS Teachers around our region that you can meet with. But I said, that’s great, but nobody follows the same calendar and it’s very hard to find other people to work with. So I started thinking, and had joined the Family Consumer Science worldwide group on Facebook to see if I could get ideas and resources. And I just started percolating this idea of having my own online professional learning community where I could host meetings and have people come in and talk, and that’s where I’m at right now. (2:56)
• Oh my goodness, there are so many people that have great ideas, and they may be doing amazingly awesome, things on their own, and being able to come up with creative strategies and things that they can do, but we have no way to share that with each other. (5:33)
• I feel like we are definitely getting to a point now as a profession where people are seeing us. I wish that we had some consistency so that we could show the world what we are doing. Because we are here and we are doing what they’re asking. It’s just, sometimes districts cut us and sometimes they kind of hide us in a corner, because it’s expensive. And something that they don’t feel as a necessary initiative, and it’s just an unfortunate initiative, but at the same time, that is what all of our communities are asking and begging for. (7:07)
• I love teaching kids sewing because so many of them don’t experience it anymore. And even hand threading, it sometimes is so difficult for kids. I tell them they have to keep trying them not letting them give up, to just keep going. Eventually they always, every single student always threads a needle, and it’s just this great moment of feeling this light bulb and this enthusiasm that they’re so excited that they finally did it. Even though it was a very difficult task for them. That’s just one of my favorite things. (12:34)
• So what makes FCS education different is the ability for a trans-disciplinary adaptability to teach real life topics, we can pretty much cover so many different real life topics that would help kids be beneficial in life. (15:36)
WHEN DOES IT AIR…
May 20, 2020