Danielle
What’s your funniest teaching moment?
I had the unusual opportunity to teach my
own daughter’s math class in 4th grade.

She’s a great student but had struggled
to always complete her work on time. It
never made sense to me knowing what I
knew about her at home. One day when I
was giving notes to the class, I looked over
and saw that she was writing each word in
a diff erent color, making a rainbow page of
notes. The diffi culty in completing assign-
ments suddenly made sense. I laughed
about it, then quickly helped her make a
change to her notetaking skills.

How can parents and teachers work together
to empower and engage children?
First, teachers and parents both need to
assume good intentions. We may have
diff erent ideas about how to work with
students, but ultimately, we all have
the same goal- successful, happy, well-
rounded kids. Teachers should invite
parents into the classroom to volunteer
and spend time with their kids, and par-
ents can help by off ering support and
encouraging their children at home. I
send home a monthly newsletter letting
parents know what we will be working
on in each subject area and help parents
to fi nd real-world experiences that rein-
force what we are learning at school.

“I believe it is in
our human nature to
be explorers. We
have a natural desire
to want to see how
the world works,
but sometimes we
need someone or
something to spark
that interest.”
DA N I E L L E T R OT TA
Danielle Trotta
6TH THROUGH 8TH-GRADE
S C I E N C E T E A C H E R AT H O LY
R E D E E M E R C AT H O L I C S C H O O L
IN KENSINGTON, MD
12-year teaching veteran
Nominated by Kathleen Neary:
“As a science teacher, Ms. Trotta keeps
students engaged through hands-on
assignments and brings an element of fun
to the school day. But, she goes beyond that
role to have an impact on so many other
aspects of our community.

For the arts festival at our school — two
days of full immersion in the arts — she
comes up with creative and engaging projects
for the students, such as mandala painting
on rocks, painting an aurora scene on canvas,
making glitter glass jars with an LED inside
and teaching hand lettering. As the leader
of the astronomy club, she arranged for
students to launch model rockets at the
Goddard Space Center.”
“This year, Ms. Trotta also began an academic
competitions team. She had all of her
students take a test for the National Science
Bee and several of them qualified for the
regional event. Ms. Trotta met students at
the event (on a Saturday) and supported
them as they competed.

What originally got you interested in teaching?
When I was in middle school, my teacher
always told me that I would be a math
and science teacher. I always shrugged it
off , but little did I know that Mrs. Tag-
garse would be right! While in college,
I changed my major several times. I
was planning on doing everything from
volcanology to medicine. In the end,
I decided to teach. It’s not the path I
thought I would take, but I am so glad
I did because I could not imagine doing
anything else.

Why do you think teachers are important?
I believe it is in our human nature to be
explorers. We have a natural desire to
want to see how the world works, but
24 Washington FAMILY SEPTEMBER 2019
sometimes we need someone or some-
thing to spark that interest. Teachers are
important because they can ignite that
spark and love of learning. It is my hope
to be able to spark some sort of inter-
est in my students that will lead them on
a path to their future. Aside from that,
teachers don’t just teach their students
academics, we help students to become
contributing members of society. We
teach patience, tolerance, respect, per-
severance and, above all, kindness. Our
jobs are important because we have the
future of the world in our classrooms.

What is the single best piece of
advice you can give parents?
Let your children go! Middle school is a
time where students aren’t just fi guring
themselves out, but they are fi guring out
what academic strategies work best for
them! Parents defi nitely should monitor
their children and help them when nec-
essary, but they should let them try to
fi gure out what studying, organizational
and other academic strategies work for
them. Students need to see that they can
do it on their own!
What’s your funniest teaching moment?
It is so hard to pick just one moment,
but one of my favorites was during my
fi rst year of teaching. My 6th-grade class
was fi nally all quietly working on what
I had asked them to do. I looked up at
them and noticed that one student had
drawn a mustache on the side of his fi n-
ger and was holding it up to his nose
as if he had a mustache. I had to take a
deep breath because I was about to burst
out laughing, but not wanting to get the
class off track, I simply said, “take it off .”
Well, little did I know, that he had made
a paper razor (he even wrote Gillette
on it) and proceeded to pretend shav-
ing his mustache off . I completely lost
it…and lost the rest of that class period
for the day!
How can parents and teachers work together
to empower and engage children?
Parents and teachers are a team that
share a common goal! We should always
work together to help students achieve
their goals. Trust and communica-
tion are critical in order to maximize
student success.

If I weren’t teaching, I’d be …
If I weren’t teaching, I would be out of a
job! Honestly, I have no idea, I can’t picture
myself doing anything else!