Dr. Joseph Ciotti

“What ultimately determines effective teaching is a conscious awareness of where your students are coming from, coupled with a willingness to spontaneously adapt to their circumstances.”

Hometown

Bronx, New York

Departments

Curriculum Studies; Educational Psychology

COEAA Spotlight on Dr. Joseph Ciotti (Credit: Kevin Agtarap)

Growing Up

I was born and lived in the Bronx, New York, my entire childhood. My parents emigrated from Italy in their youth soon after their fathers had immigrated to New York City to earn enough to bring their families to America.

I grew up during the pinnacle era of the Bronx Bombers and the advent of the Space Age, and dreamed alternately of wearing Yankee pinstripes and astronaut jumpsuits. When we weren’t playing stickball in the busy neighborhood streets, we’d team up for softball games in city   playgrounds paved totally with concrete. With my high competitiveness and passion for the game, not even the lack of dirt or grass would stop me from sliding full speed into the bases.

Although stargazing in the Bronx was difficult due to light-pollution and tall buildings, I fondly remember experiencing an epiphany moment one evening that changed my life. Looking up between the canyon of apartment buildings that lined the sides of our stickball street, I noticed the brightest star I had ever seen. I instantly knew it was Jupiter, since the media had been mentioning it. I remember standing there in the middle of the street in total awe. It was a major “aha!” moment for me. I had just realized that someone as ordinary as me—a young kid from the Bronx—could see something as extraordinary as the planet Jupiter. It wasn’t reserved only for experts or scientists. The euphoria of that moment changed my mindset forever.

Becoming an Educator

My most influential experiences that unwittingly led me on a path to teaching came through my passion for hands-on activities that involved both skill and creativity. Baseball not only required superior physical skills like hand-eye coordination and reflexes, it depended largely on the ability to visualize—to mentally rehearse the flight of a ball whether swinging a bat or catching a deep fly. The skills I gained in visualization paid high dividends in developing innovative curricula and programs.

My creative side coaxed me to perform in front of audiences, despite my shyness. At one of my elementary school plays, I not only took on the role of Macduff in a modified version of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, I designed and built all its scenery. This dual skill came in handy for my educational career as a producer of planetarium shows, where at times I not only wrote the script but also performed character narrations and created computer graphics for the fulldome show.

Magic was always one of my favorite forms of acting. It intrigued me because of its creative slight-of-hand skills and its underpinning on science-related illusions. The magic acts I performed before family and friends provided the same skills I eventually called upon when conducting science demonstrations in class and storytelling in the planetarium theater.

One of the major lessons I learned from watching great performers like speakers, actors, comedians and magicians was that their success was directly related not only to how well they prepared, but how well they read their audience and adjusted to the room. These same skills apply to great teachers. Intense preparation only goes so far. What ultimately determines effective teaching is a conscious awareness of where your students are coming from, coupled with a willingness to spontaneously adapt to their circumstances.

Another pivotal experience that shaped my career was my participation in a summer program for high school students at the American Museum-Hayden Planetarium in Manhattan. It was here where my fascination with planetariums was born.  The images displayed on its immersive dome visually peeled away the mystery of difficult-to-understand concepts. It was my first extensive experience with informal education, and despite my youth, I realized the unique power this type of learning facility held. Years later, this unforgettable experience would guide me in spearheading the construction of several planetariums in Hawaiʻi. Its impact was so great that I still have the spiral notebook of lecture notes I took as a keepsake to remind me of that special summer at the Hayden Planetarium.

Degrees

I began my academic journey in the sciences, earning a Bachelor of Science in Astronomy from Georgetown University in 1967. I continued my studies in that field at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, where I received a Master of Science in 1969. Later, I shifted my focus toward the field of education at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, earning a Master of Education in Curriculum & Instruction in 1981 and eventually completing a PhD in Educational Psychology in 1984.

Future of ʻĀina-Based Education in Hawaiʻi

I’m a long-time advocate for both project-based and placed-based learning. Programs like Project Imua and Windward Community College’s (WCC) Polynesian Voyaging program, which I developed and coordinated, intrinsically incorporate these strategies. For example, WCC’s Polynesian Voyaging curriculum provides hands-on experience with both traditional wayfinding and stewardship of the ʻāina.

Informal educational organizations, like the Pacific American Foundation (PAF), have long championed ʻāina-based education in Hawaiʻi. In particular, PAF’s partnership with Hawaiʻi Blue Schools Hui (UNESCO) at its Kāneʻohe Waikalua Loko Iʻa fishpond is an exemplary place-based model, which was recently featured in a NatGeo article. Its goal focuses on strengthening students’ ocean literacy in conjunction with Hawaiʻi’s rich traditional legacy in aquaculture.

I fully anticipate that organizations like PAF will continue to assert major influence in guiding the long-term goals of integrating ʻāina-based education into Hawaiʻi’s broader education system. In a promising move, the State of Hawaiʻi recently enacted the Restorative Aquaculture Development Program, which prioritizes loko iʻa and other native systems. It’s also worthy to note that PAF’s CEO, Dr. Kapono Ciotti, who is my eldest son, has close ties with the Hawai‘i education system, having been principal of Wai‘alae Elementary Public Charter School and taught graduate courses at the UH Mānoa College of Education.

Teacher in Space Finalist

Being selected as one of Hawaiʻi’s Teacher-in Space finalists for the NASA Shuttle Challenger was a major turning point in my teaching career. This provided a strong platform, opportunity and credentials to found and direct the Center for Aerospace Education at Windward Community College—a multi-resource, educational complex that includes a planetarium, hands-on science exploratorium, astronomical observatory, and high-power rocketry lab. The latter facility serves as the headquarters for Project Imua, a multi-UH-campus enterprise under Hawaiʻi Space Grant Consortium that provides undergraduate students the necessary resources to design, assemble and launch small scientific payloads into outer space. During my tenure as Project Imua Manager, my students successfully launched four payloads into space from the NASA Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia—with Mission 1 marking a major milestone as the very first UH-designed payload to reach outer space.

Inspiration and Motivation

Washington University Law School; creative, physical actors like Keanu Reeves and Tom Cruise; and respected athletes like Mickey Mantle and Aaron Judge.

One teacher that greatly inspired me was Don Herbert, who pioneered informal science education on TV as Mr. Wizard. He played a significant role on which I would later model my style of science teaching.

It’s been said that the best predictor of a boy’s future is his father. That certainly was true for me. Despite the struggles he faced as a young Italian immigrant, my dad grew into a true renaissance man—an artist, photographer, multilinguist, handyman, and devoted father, who saw the spark of curiosity in me and inspired me to pursue my dreams.

Teachers, like parents, face the demanding task of leading their students to the edge of their comfort zone and encouraging them to take a leap of faith.

What keeps me going is the excitement of sharing the joy of learning. I was fortunate to teach my sons not only at home, but also in undergraduate school—even guiding my youngest son Makana in his pursuits of master degrees in geology and space science. Now I’m doing the same with my grandchildren: tutoring physics, sharing magic secrets, performing hands-on Mr. Wizard-type demos, and always creative playing. They, like the thousands of students I’ve taught, are the legacy of any teacher. The Teacher-in-Space motto says it well – “I touch the future… I teach.”

Three Fun Facts

1. While attending Georgetown University, I played lead guitar for the rock group The Electric Wheel Barrel.

2. I climbed Kilimanjaro, Africa’s highest peak, with my middle son Nainoa.

3. Unusual jobs: I worked summers at the United Nations philatelic mail division in New York City; and as a member of the AFROTC Dowd Rifle Drill Team, I was selected to assist the Secret Service during the 1965 inauguration of President Lyndon B. Johnson in Washington, DC.