We measure what we value. This is true in how we spend our time, where we focus our efforts, and how we evaluate our teachers. Believing that educators must embrace the whole child—we must be sure that a child is healthy, safe, supported, engaged, and challenged—then how should that have an impact on our approach to teacher evaluation? Don't misunderstand me: academic skills are terribly important, and teachers, principals, and schools are judged how children perform on multiple-choice tests. We can mourn that (and I do), but it is a reality. But it can't be the whole reality. As we prepare students to succeed in the real world, not just to do better on their tests next year than they did this year, we must bring a whole child approach to how we view our students.
If we want our students to be healthy and safe, we need to be sure that this is a priority for teachers. Regardless of the subject matter that they are teaching, do all teachers talk about healthy life-styles and nutrition? These issues are too important to be solely the province of the health or physical education teachers. Do all teachers ensure that put-downs and bullying are not part of the school culture? Being safe, after all, is more than being physically safe, although it is that; being safe also includes not being subject to
