Stepping Stones: My Journey to Becoming a Literacy Consultant (Step Six)

From the desk of Hope…

I feel like I am at the half way point with my story  —  becoming a literacy consultant. My Blog, Stepping Stone Five, was about getting my Master’s Degree. That seemed to be a turning point in my career. As I said in that blog, “I kicked it up a notch”.

My confidence and love for teaching was soaring when I graduated from Salem College so I began to be a teacher leader.

What does it mean to be a teacher leader?

One website says it like this:

Teacher leaders assume a wide range of roles to support school and student success. Whether these roles are assigned formally or shared informally, they build the entire school’s capacity to improve.

It is almost impossible to define teacher leadership in a few words. There are so many different ways that teachers can lead in and outside the classroom. For me personally, my goal was to be an active and effective teacher leader so that I could directly impact my school, its teachers, and most importantly the students.

Some articles refer to this as “second-stage” teachers.

In this stage of my teaching, I taught workshops (and boy was I nervous!  I would write out everything I was going to say – boooring!) I also joined the leadership team and volunteered for committees, I hosted student teachers, I mentored new teachers and I looked for ways to help my school as a whole while growing as a professional.

Trust me, this wasn’t easy. I remember spending hours upon hours doing “extra” work for my schools when I really just wanted to be out having fun! I learned many lessons, sometimes the hard way, about how to work with people and I encountered many obstacles on this journey that in the end helped me learn and grow as a human being.

For me, deciding to become a teacher leader was part of my aspiration to some day move beyond the classroom and work with teachers in staff development. This was in my “big game plan” and I knew I had to get busy preparing myself.

Step Six: Becoming a teacher leader offers an opportunity to vary your responsibilities and expand your influence – go for it!