Drive

-->

-->

I believe that teachers should model for students the high expectations we want students to uphold. Last year, a university came to Whitman and did a huge study on student nutrition. Teachers were required to teach student the benefits of a healthy diet and lifestyle. As a result the school was given gift cards from Target and one of the students wrote an essay for a local grocery store and won an additional $1000 more in gift cards. 

The problem with the teaching of healthy habits that I realized was that we were training students and the staff was not healthy at all. Many teachers, including myself was over weight and not exercising. We would make the children bring healthy snacks and participate in running club while we sat and watched (do what I say, not as I do attitude). To change this I put out a Principal's challenge. The challenge was a carrot and stick challenge I thought everyone would benefit from it they participated. I was especially targeting teachers who has a history of being out a number of sick days. These teachers went to lunch everyday and brought junk food coupled with large sodas. The challenge was that the staff member who walked the most steps in three months would win a $100 gift card. All the teachers were required to do was get a pedometer and record their progress weekly. In order to support them I modeled times when they could get additional steps. For example, walking around the classroom and helping students instead of sitting and teaching from a desk, walking the field with the students during running club or joining Zumba which was right after school two days a week. Easy, right? What I found so far is that this carrot and stick seems to work for those who are motivated to get healthy and probably was already exercising. However, the teachers I was targeting didn't think $100 was worth the effort of joining the Principal's challenge. The teachers who participated seemed to be motivated by the idea of getting healthy with friends as support and didn't really care about the reward but the competition.  Money didn't matter. What I learned from this experience is that carrots and stick will not motivate everyone, no matter the reward to themselves or their bank account. The sad part is that the teachers who really could benefit from this challenge didn't participate. In the long run their unhealthy habits will continue to cause them problems and add to the number of days they miss from work.

 As a principal, autonomy is important. I think good leaders need the room to be creative and innovative. I don't mind being given deadlines or task but I don't want to be micro-managed when doing them. For example, I was told I needed to market my school to improve enrollment. I chose to change Whitman into a STEM magnet. I had to do this without the support of the district resources. If I has waited for the district I probably would have had to follow district rules and procredures on gaining support and partnerships for my school. I have heard of principals being told to wait on ideas because the district was not really to implement their idea or deal with parents who might not want their children in certain programs.  I didn't want this to happen to me and my staff. So we worked together and came up with a plan for implementation and agreed to support it as a staff - a year later we were a STEM magnet school who had partnered with the Ruben H. Fleet museum, who gave us a professional developer to train teachers and provided field trips to the museum for students. In some cases, it's better to ask for forgiveness instead of permission.