Mother Wit is using common sense in everyday matters and situations.

When I think of Mother Wit, I think of a quote by Miles Kington, “Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit; wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.” When I was in college, learning how to be a teacher, one of my professors told the class that the best teachers possess mother wit. No matter where you are in your teaching career, if you have survived this long, you have Mother Wit to some degree. You are adding to your knowledge base daily.

In teaching, every day is a new challenge, trying to get and keep students engaged. We won’t even talk about lesson plans, attendance, or testing while dealing with the constant flow of ever-changing directives from admin, the multitude of meetings, etc. We, teachers, are doing that! We get the job done every day. We do it flawlessly; we make it look easy.   So much so that many thought they could do our job better; until they had to do it during the pandemic. The outcry was maddening. It was hard, but we did our best. Educators rose above and found or created solutions. Mother Wit,  is that ” je ne sais quoi” that all successful educators share in teaching, creating, and supporting students and each other, as education as we know it evolves with the times.