Meet Peter Watts

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Peter Watts. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Peter below.

Peter , we’re thrilled to have you on our platform and we think there is so much folks can learn from you and your story. Something that matters deeply to us is living a life and leading a career filled with purpose and so let’s start by chatting about how you found your purpose.
Finding your purpose can be an incredibly rewarding and fulfilling journey. It took me some time to figure out what my purpose was, but I eventually realized it by reflecting on my values and interests, and by exploring different activities and opportunities. I also sought out advice from family and friends, and followed my intuition. I have had many jobs and careers before discovering what my true purpose was in life. It wasn’t until I realized that when I gave back to others by being a role model, supporter, donor, and encourager that my purpose began to develop. When I was a teacher in the classroom I always knew that I had the gift to break down difficult concepts into ways that people could understand. When I got the opportunity to be a principal I was able to use that same gift with the adults that I was leading. Today, I am taking all of my experiences as an educator, father, community leader and pouring all of those experiences back into the lives of other young black men who are coming up in the education system. This journey to discovering my purpose took the time to think about what topics I was passionate about, and what I could do to make a positive impact on the world. Once I had a better understanding of my strengths and weaknesses, I was better able to identify my true purpose and put it into action.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
Peter Watts Jr. is piloting the Teacher Village, a culturally-affirming community-based approach to nurturing the development of African American public school teachers. The Village supplements the curriculum of existing credentialing programs to address the social, emotional, and housing needs of Black teachers-in-training. Its approach pays particular attention to Black men, many of whom must heal from trauma experienced in their lives and communities as they become teachers. The experience of the Teacher Village pilot in South Los Angeles is shared through short videos, op-ed essays, workshops and webinars that makes the case for expanding the Teacher Village model nationally and explore the implications of the Village approach to overcoming histories of racial exclusion in other sectors of society.

The Teacher Village addresses challenges in the teaching profession through a multifaceted multi-year program that I am piloting in South Los Angeles. The Village provides professional community, social connection, and housing for Black college graduates while they are earning their credentials.

The program:

Engages college seniors at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and local colleges in Los Angeles to encourage them to consider a career in education, and offers a Summer Village program in their senior year to help them explore the field.

Features a two-year Teacher Village Fellowship. After graduating from college, Fellows move into housing provided by the program, participate in a pre-service Summer Institute, and then work as teaching assistants under master teachers as they earn their teaching credential through our partnerships with the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) and the CalStateTEACH credentialing programs. During year two, they complete their student teaching.

Addresses the emotional, cultural, and soft skills development that are not the strength of the credentialing programs. The Village supplements those programs with additional workshops, professional mentoring, and peer support from within the cohort.

Provides housing until a new teacher is fully certified and has secured a teaching position. As they near completion, Fellows will also be connected to workshops and resources for first-time home owners and encouraged to work towards buying a home in the community.

Various projects across the country are working to recruit and train Black educators. But as far as I know, the Teacher Village is unique in the way that it connects all of the elements outlined above.

The success of our Teacher Village pilot has the potential to inspire community activists and school districts across the country and may have implications for efforts to overcome racial exclusion in other aspects of society. As our first Fellows secure their teaching credentials during the 2023-24 school year we will share our approach through communication tools including professional quality short videos, op-ed essays, workshops and webinars.

These outreach efforts will shine a light on the history of segregation and exclusion in the education profession, today’s racial disparities, and the logic of our comprehensive community-based approach to recruiting and developing African American teachers. We will pay particular attention to elevating the voices of Black men in the program and the ways that the Village program supports the cultural and emotional work they are doing to overcome traumatic experiences from their own childhoods as they become professional educators. We will seek to share what we are learning with the larger racial justice field and look forward to dialogue and mutual learning with our movement colleagues.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
There are three key growth points in my leadership that I would like to highlight. I now understand that I possess the expertise or knowledge in the work that I’m doing as a founder and CEO of a non-profit organization that needs to raise funds, but have historically lacked access to wealth and capital and this has been one of my greatest challenges. Secondly, I have learned to be direct when asking for help and funding needs for projects that I’m working on. Thirdly, with the support of executive coaching, I have learned key skills and built confidence in fund development. I knew I had to change my own mindset when operating in fear and scarcity. A lot of times leaders of color in majority spaces feel like they don’t have the skills, knowledge or ability to achieve what it is that they have been purposed to do. In the areas where you might find weaknesses, I would encourage people to stretch themselves. Find someone who you want to model yourself after and reach out to them and ask if they would give you an opportunity to be mentored and/or coached by them. You would be surprised at how many men and women of color want to pour back into the next generation. I have been stretched in the area of fundraising, donor development and working on capital campaigns to build affordable housing for pre-service teachers. This growth has resulted in confidence when presenting our strategic plan, vision and mission. It has generated substantial investments, and donations to our organization that I would have previously not imagined.

How can folks who want to work with you connect?
The African Proverb says, “It takes a village to raise a child.” At the Watts of Power Foundation we believe that it truly does take a village to do the work we do in education. There is not one organization or one person or business that has the answers to solve the problems in education when it comes to student achievement and closing the Black educator pipeline gap. We believe that partners are key to the work we do. Partnership is one of our values. We are always looking for public schools, foundations, educators, and colleges and housing development partners who are interested in supporting Black men who are interested in going into teaching. We have an aggressive goal to raise 2.5M over the next 18 months to grow our organization and build our first Teacher Village housing to open in Summer of 2024. If you are a potential partner we would encourage you to visit our website or reach out to us by email at admin@wattsofpowerfoundation.org

Contact Info:

Suggest a Story: BoldJourney is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
Productivity
Beating Burnout

Often the key to having massive impact is the ability to keep going when others

Leadership Development
Where does your generosity come from?

Over the years, we have consistently been blown away by the examples of generosity we’ve

Productivity
From Burnout to Balance: The Role of Self-Care

Burning out is one of the primary risks you face as you work towards your