Professional Development of a Lifetime!

My name is Emily Wainio-Oato, affectionately known by my students as Miss W-O (pronounced "whoa"). I am an elementary school teacher in Florida! I have been working at a small school for 3 years and found every moment of loving and educating young students to be worth the move to a new city. The main objective in my reading and social studies classroom is to teach students to have the knowledge they need to become citizens of this world; without the vital practices of these two subjects, many of our students would enter the world lost and unable to advocate for themselves. This is a reality I aim to prevent every day.

As you can imagine, teaching is sometimes a difficult profession. It requires much more work than is paid, LOTS of love and patience for all varieties of students, and most of all, constant development and growth in your craft.

Without Professional Development, or "PD" as it's known in the teaching world, we educators would not have access to new and best practices for our ever-important job of preparing children for the world! Did you know that "summers off" is a myth for some teachers? Many of us spend summer on Professional Development excursions so we can come into the school year ready to teach in better ways than the year before!

That leads me to the exciting situation I am currently faced with. I have the option to travel with an organization called Teach With Love and teacher Angela Watson for Professional Development in Egypt! In the summer of 2022, approximately 40 teachers from around (mostly) the United States are heading to Africa to take in many of the available opportunities to grow as educators. There is much to be learned in this wealth of ancient history and knowledge. I'm including some links at the bottom of this description for more information on Teach With Love and on Angela Watson, the former educator-gone-Teacher Specialist, whose cohort brought me hundreds of hours of more productive working time and saved my career-life balance as an educator.

The reason that I humbly ask for a donation is that affording an excursion like this can be expensive on a teacher salary. Of course, I am covering many travel expenses on my own; I can't in good conscience ask for a full funding of this kind of trip. However, I am so looking forward to this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for professional development that I don't want to let it out of my grasp! The possibility of learning to be a better teacher for our children with an internationally recognized Teacher Specialist (Angela Watson!) is an absolute dream, and the philosophy behind Teach With Love is inarguably one of the most positive and uplifting messages I have come across.

On top of this, proceeds paid through my trip expenses to Teach With Love actually end up going to disenfranchised Teacher Communities. More info on this can be found on the Teach With Love website (link below). Thank you for considering helping to fund this unique Professional Development experience. God bless!

Angela Watson's the Cornerstone for Teachers: https://thecornerstoneforteachers.com

Teach with Love Global: https://www.teachwithlove.com

Egypt Itinerary: https://www.teachwithlove.com/egypt-2022-info-page-1