How teachers at one school said good-bye to gripes, boosted morale, and built a bastion of faculty unity. By Meg A. Bozzone Step through the fire-engine red doors at Benjamin Banneker Elementary School in Milford, Delaware, and the joyful cohesiveness of the faculty and staff envelops you like a warm blanket on a frosty night. School families team up to landscape the courtyard garden and collaborate on Hooked on Homework, the school's homegrown motivation program. In the Solutions Book, second-grade teachers jot down possible remedies to scheduling glitches for the school improvement committee to consider. The reigning atmosphere of collegiality, however, didn't magically materialize overnight.
Any school can do it.
To bring you this inspirational story, Instructor paid a visit to Banneker and takes you behind the scenes, where teachers describe their practical strategies for working together and warn of pitfalls to avoid. Other than a pay cut, few things dampen morale more than festering problems. Where there is no avenue for voicing complaints, no one to listen to them, or no action taken, negativity and energy-sapping gossip breed faster than fruit flies on a compost pile. To turn the tide, five years ago the staff at Banneker decided to implement a simple but powerful program that third-grade teachers Margaret Martin and Judy Purcell heard about at a workshop. Here's how it works.