Episode #97: Build Hope and Spread Kindness to Impact Globally with Roman Nowak

Roman Nowak is a High School English Teacher in Rockland, Ontario in Canada. He is a Student Success Leader, an Agent of Transformation, and is also a fitness enthusiast. I am fortunate to know Roman because of Twitter as the host of BuildHOPEedu and also for sharing quotes about being kind and caring for each other. Roman and I had this conversation at the end of February before the stay at home order. His message is what we need now during the COVID-19 pandemic and after so we all build hope and spread kindness.<br />Your background<br />I am from a Polish background and there is no letter in the alphabet for "W" so my last name is pronounced "NOVAK." Pronunciation of names is really important to me. I always give my students some history and background of my name and want to make sure I pronounce their names correctly. I live in Rockland that is northeast of Toronto. <br />This is my 15th year in teaching with a varied background in the elementary yet mostly in the secondary system. Since French is one of our official languages, I’m a high school English teacher but in a French-language district. English is a second language for many of our students.  I was called a Student Success Teacher and was that coach who worked with students who were just on the cusp of failing. I worked with the teachers on how to be proactive and work on preventing failure. This is my second year back in a school system because I took a leave from my school. My district lent me out to our provincial government to work on policies and programs for three years to support student success for our twelve French-language districts. I missed the classroom a lot and came back to be a full-time classroom English teacher and do a couple of cooking classes here and there because that’s a passion of mine. So I’m having fun on a daily basis. <br /><br />Find the sunshine. Be the light. Help make the world a better place.<br />What it was like when you were a student<br />I came from a very conservative family with a religious upbringing. My dad u