Teacher Leader Administrators: Part 3 of a Symposium on Teachers as Leaders

Abstract

JARROD: Would you still refer to yourself as a teacher, now that you've left the classroom? If you would, what does that mean? If you wouldn't, how does that feel? It's something that I've been thinking about. BECKI: I don't usually anymore, although I call myself an educator. I think I spend a lot of my time being a teacher of teachers. I spend a lot of time with kids, too. I know what it means to lead a classroom and to run a class. I want to respect the work that teachers are doing for all those hours every week, but that's not where I spend my time anymore. There's a lot of freedom that comes along with not having to be in those classes for so many hours every week. If I'm meeting somebody for the first time, and they work at a school, a lot of times I'll say, "Oh, I work at a school, too, or oh, I'm an educator, too." There's definitely a discomfort with placing myself in that administrator