Warrior Wellness: An inside look at Willowbrook’s Leadership Training

Willowbrook students are working hard every day to become more educated with their health and wellness, and we are thrilled to feature those accomplishments through this monthly column.

In this edition of Warrior Wellness, we focus on one of our courses for juniors, Leadership Training (pictured above). This yearlong class is designed to prepare candidates for their senior year as full-fledged leaders in physical education classes.

During their sophomore year, students are recommended to enroll in this course by teachers or coaches from the physical education department. Participants will typically spend a portion of their junior year learning about the physical education offerings and the FitnessGram program and tests. Senior leaders are expected to help physical education teachers administer these tests to other students. This year, because of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, we have had the leadership candidates learn how to administer the FitnessGram assessments for themselves by recording their fitness tests using the Flipgrid app. That program allows students to record themselves taking the tests and to see where testing protocols are followed or where they need to improve. This has been a powerful tool in giving students feedback on what they will need next year.

Now that we are able to offer in-person learning again, we are focusing on safely showing our students some of the activities that are part of our curriculum. As the weather gets warmer, we are able to use all of the great space and outdoor areas available on our campus. Some of the fun sports and activities in which students are participating include Spikeball, tennis, outdoor walks and more! We coordinate our students on Zoom who are able to do some of their workouts online and others where they time lapse record themselves exercising for a certain amount of time. This condenses the amount of time it takes to view and verify that the workout was completed. We also have been using fitness trackers, so pupils can go outside and jog, walk or bike to enjoy the great weather.

On the classroom side, we are still engaging students with weekly mindfulness activities such as meditations and journal entries. In these journal entries, students get to answer questions that allow them to express their thoughts in an unbiased manner. We’ve had a lot of positive feedback on these activities.

Thank you for reading, and we look forward to providing more Warrior Wellness columns next school year. Enjoy the summer break, and stay healthy!

With Warrior Pride,
Mike Haussmann
Willowbrook Department Head for physical education, health and driver education

• The Warrior Wellness column provides an inside look into the physical education, health and driver education classes at Willowbrook. This feature highlights what students are working on in class, as well as student successes in those departments.