Morale and Team Building

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How does your administration boost faculty morale? I work in a school where the climate among many teachers is very tense. It seems like no matter what my administration does, most of the teachers are never pleased. To them, participating in a team building activity after school keeps them from doing their work and puts them behind. Instead of looking at the positive and the importance of fostering relationships, many see it as doing something that is not part of their job. This is wrong on so many levels. The team building activity we had last week was meant to bring out the fun in the teachers. The PTO catered food, we were not looking at data, talking about new "best practices", or discussing the deadline for end of term grades. It was rather frustrating to listen to all of the negative comments while some of us were trying to soak up the moment of happiness. I sat back and watched my boss as he calmly overlooked and ignored the remarks made by the negative commentators, and kept on working to build a positive climate. I finally decided that the negative comments were not going to keep me from enjoying my time with those who were there to enjoy an afternoon of fun and fellowship. So, what do you do? How do you deal with negative people?

Comments

  1. UnknownOctober 24, 2015 at 7:59 AM

    The biggest thing for the leadership team is to show solidarity while being in the classrooms supporting the teachers in their quest to become more effective teachers. Being a part of school improvement from the administrative perspective means being in the trenches doing the dirty work that is often shirked or ignored by some administrators. Celebrate effective teachers and teachers that are moving along the path to becoming more effective.

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownNovember 22, 2015 at 6:04 PM

    Continue to focus on the positive eventually the noise of the negative will fade. While you hope that everyone would get along it may not happen but you are there for the kids they make up a large percent of your stakeholders.

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