MAY 31, 2019, KEIZERTIMES, PAGE A3
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What it takes to be a school principal
BY LAUREN MURPHY
Of No Adults Allowed
Sixteen years ago, when Julia DeWitt started
working in the education system, she had no idea it
would lead her to being principal of Whiteaker Middle
School. “When I started out I wanted to be a math
teacher,” Ms. DeWitt said.
Her fi rst full time permanent teaching job out
of college was teaching sixth grade language arts
and social studies at Claggett Creek Middle School,
“I just loved teaching language arts and social
studies, I just really enjoyed that.” Though
she intended to switch to the math
department when a job opened up,
she decided to stay, “I loved it so
much, I never looked back.”
Before she was the principal
of Whiteaker, she was a teacher, a
teacher leader, an instructional coach
and an assistant principal at various
schools in the district, “I just kept getting all these
hats they’d have me wear,” she said. “I never thought
I would be a principal, it was never on my radar,” Ms.
Dewitt said, “I was enjoying what I was doing, felt like
I was making a diff erence, I get to work with people.”
Ms. DeWitt cares greatly for her students and the
people she interacts with on a daily basis, “The best
parts are just the people: the students, the staff , the
community, just working with people.”
“I have less daily contact with students but a greater
infl uence,” she said, “As a teacher you have a greater
impact on classes of students, as an administrator you
have an impact on a whole school and community.”
The driving force behind her decision-making are the
students, “I feel like my experience as a teacher, and a
teacher leader, and an instructional coach really helps
me stay in tune with making sure the decisions I’m
making are best for kids.”
“I work for kids,” Ms. DeWitt said. “Every day on my
drive to work, I think about my students and about
how to make this a great day, a great week,
that they’re always on my mind
about how to move and grow.”
She had this mentality when
she was a teacher, too. At the
end of the year in her social
studies classes, she found a
way to make her students look
forward to the end of the unit
instead of dreading a test, ““Instead
of a test, we had our Greek Olympics.” Students in the
class would compete in diff erent events, “At the end of
it because the kids were so invested everybody got a
medal.”
She also had her sixth grade language arts students
write a letter to the incoming middle schoolers.“They
were just wonderful letters,” she said, “It was authentic.”
The letters would contain advice, tips, encouraging
words, and of course a little humor. On the fi rst day
of school, she would hand the letters to her incoming
• Uranus is tilted on its side
students, “It was a great fi rst day for kids.”
“Those are things I miss, those making memories,
being together, being a family,” she said, but overall,
she feels that moving to administration was the right
decision, “I’ve had all this experiences that could really
benefi t being in the position of a principal.”
She has found a few ways to transfer her creativity
from teaching into her current position, “Middle school
is about teaching the whole child,” “In addition to
academic, we talk about social/emotional learning.”
“I love my job,” she said, “They know that when
they leave here, they’re leaving here with a group of
adults that really care about them, beyond a test score.”
Book off ers guide to fairy tales, life
• Many public libraries carry
video games and movies in
an attempt to get younger
people to get a library card.
• National Football League
referees also get rings for
being in the Super Bowl.
• During World War II the Eagles and Steelers combined in 1943
to form the “Steagles.”
• Contagious yawning is when someone yawns because they
watched someone else yawn.
• Most dinosaurs were closer to the size of a human rather than
being massive creatures.
• Dinosaurs are divided into groups based on their hip bone
structure.
• A type of fungus in the tropics takes over ants’ central nervous
systems and turn them into
zombies.
What is a
killer whale’s
favorite type
of music?
KEIZERTIMES/File Photo
Julia DeWitt, Whiteaker Middle School Principal
• The letter “q” is the only
letter that does not appear
in the name of any of the
United States.
BY ERIC A. HOWALD
Of No Adults Allowed
As you grow up, you
might begin to realize that
adults don’t always know
everything. Adults like me
try to know as much as
we can but, even when
we’re sure of something,
new information can come
along and change the way
we think.
That’s a long way of
saying we don’t get an
instruction manual when
we’re born, and many things would be easier if we
had a book to turn to. Writers try to come up with
life manuals all the time, but the closest thing I’ve
ever found is a poem by author Neil Gaiman titled
Instructions. It just so happens that his poem was
later turned into a picture book with the same
title and illustrated by artist Charles Vess.
Instructions doesn’t sound like a
typical poem that you learn about in
school with a lot of rhyming words
– not all poems need to rhyme,
some of the best don’t rhyme
at all – but Gaiman uses short sentences to talk to
the reader as though they’ve entered a fairy tale
and gives them advice on making it back home
safely while making sure there are
several adventures before they do.
There are notes on what to do
when encountering three princesses,
whether you should trust wolves
and how to slay a dragon, but there’s
also instructions that apply to any
journey.
One of my favorite sections
is, “If any creature tells you that it
hungers, feed it. If it tells you that
it is dirty, clean it. If it cries to you
that it hurts, if you can, ease its pain.” That’s the
type of instruction we all need to be reminded
of whether we are still in school or as old as dirt.
All of the writer’s beautiful words come
to life alongside beautiful ink-and-watercolor
illustrations by Vess, who is pretty much the
perfect match for any fairy tale ever.
As much as there is to learn from Instructions,
the best thing about the book is that it reminds
us there are adventures waiting for us as long as
we don’t forget how to look for them. This book is
only one of many waiting for you.
Orca-stra