A Conversation with Dr. Williams — Middle School Principal
Dr. Williams has held a variety of roles in the education world over the years. He has been named Teacher of the Year (2007) and been recognized for many other accomplishments throughout his career. Get to know Dr. Michael Williams, Principal of Harold E. Winkler Middle School, here.
Tell me a little bit about yourself:
I have been a middle school principal since 2015. Around 1250 students attend my school and I supervise around 125 faculty and staff members. Prior to my current role I was an assistant principal (2 years), an instructional specialist for secondary schools (2 years), a high school social studies teacher (2 years), and a middle school social studies teacher (12 years). I was also a basketball coach at the middle and high school levels.
What is your ‘why’?
Each day, I set out with the purpose of making people’s lives better. I think people and organizations should have a purpose, and this vision and mission must be directly aligned to that purpose. The purpose should drive everything we do. On a personal level, I strive to find ways to make sure everyone around me is successful and finds joy through that success. Organizationally, we strive to empower teachers to do the same for students. We have built a culture of growing and learning that leads to better lives.
What is the best part of your role, and why?
I love hiring the right people and spending time dreaming with them. I’ve found that my most important role is to hire well, give the right support at the right time, be a cheerleader, and make sure people have what they need to do great work. I firmly believe great teachers are always going to do great things for students. And those great teachers are looking for a place where they are empowered, not managed. I also love the idea of dreaming: we are constantly in a state of “plussing” where we look for what we can do next to make life better for people. It’s fun to get smart people in the room and empower them to dream!
Do you have any advice for teachers or administrators?
This profession is phenomenal when we keep our focus on the long game. Every profession has moments of frustration, but we have to be careful not to measure our happiness based on the moment. We can rarely use the moment to define our success. Instead, we have to get enough time behind us to look back at ALL of the positive work we did. We also have to be intentional to look for the positive things in our lives.
What do you think makes a classroom successful? How have you encouraged students to do their best work?
I believe two things make a classroom successful: strong community and academic rigor. In our building, we phrase this differently; we talk about love and rigor. I think great teaching can look like lots of different things, but in all great classrooms, teachers build strong community where students know they are loved and they belong AND they work students really hard. When teachers can balance these two things, magic happens.
I also think a lot about engagement for students. I define this as the spot where what students are willing to do overlaps with what they must learn. I believe we have to consider students to be volunteers rather than employees, which requires us to think differently about how we motivate them beyond just giving a grade.
Compare coaching and teaching: how did doing both impact you in your career?
They match. Great coaching IS great teaching. Each of the professions requires us to use backwards design to build action steps toward the goals we want students and players to reach. Coaching isn’t just coming up with a scheme; instead, it is rooted in building players’ skills so they build automaticity and can approximate their own decisions. In the long game, teaching is exactly the same. We are helping students build a skill set they can use to live independently.
How did you adapt to a virtual school year this past year?
It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I am a deeply hands-on leader and I felt completely disconnected from the work. To adapt, I had to worry less about how teachers were teaching and spend most of my time supporting teachers’ social-emotional-mental well being, and doing my best to make sure students were engaged. I’m not a big fan of staff meetings, but we started scheduling them twice a week to listen and respond, and I spent a ton of time checking in on kids and families.