Teacher Leaders

 Recently, I followed a conversation on social media on why anyone would want to leave the classroom to become a teacher leader. Some of the comments were what I considered “brutal.” The implications were that teacher leaders were “bossy” and were there to tell a colleague what to do or how to teach. Another comment was that principals put teachers in those positions to get them out of the classroom, implying that these teacher leaders were ineffective. Other tweets accused  teacher leaders of being “above” classroom teachers because they were considered part of administration and even helped with evaluations.  As a retired principal who viewed our teacher leaders as essential to teaching and learning at our school, many of those comments surprised and saddened me. 

In a school where relationships matter, teacher leaders follow the lead of administrators. If there is a culture of trust, respect, teamwork, and continuous improvement at the school, teacher leaders can play a key role in partnering with the administration to provide support and guidance. 

As a principal, I believed in helping all of our teachers gain skills and strategies that would help them to be even better. Sometimes that meant taking a teacher out of the classroom to gain a different perspective. Our  teacher leaders were more like coaches or mentors, helping their colleagues to reflect and to improve their craft through guided discussions, informal conversations, classroom observations, and reflective questions. When a teacher was feeling overwhelmed, it was often easier to speak confidentially with a teacher leader rather than with an administrator who also happens to be the evaluator. 

Selecting the right person for a teacher leader position can be tough. Good teachers love being with their students, but they are not always confident that they can work effectively with adults. As a principal, I sometimes needed to convince teachers that they could do the job and that I thought they would not only be effective, they would also enjoy the new experience. And they did! 

These coaches/mentors guided grade level curricular discussions, helped to analyze student work, shared resources and strategies, and helped to plan grade level activities. They co-planned lessons with new teachers and co-taught lessons with them, reflecting afterwards about what worked and what didn’t. They observed new teachers using the Department’s evaluative tool, shared their evidences from the observation, and helped these teachers to reflect on what they could do to improve their lessons. They realized that new teachers needed opportunities to be part of a professional learning community, and they asked for release time so these teachers could get together during the school day to receive training or to share with each other. These coaches/mentors were able to take new teachers to visit other classrooms and debrief afterwards to set goals or to commit to trying a new idea. In short, these teacher leaders were able to provide the support, training, and guidance that was so crucial to keep our school moving forward.

I recently had a conversation with Sandy Cameli, facilitator of  Na Kumu Alaka`i - Hawaii Teacher Leader Academy. Sandy and her team continue to train teachers from every island and every complex area in the Hawaii Department of Education. Some of these teachers may eventually go into administration, but many just want to be better leaders at their school or in their complex area or district. I feel there should be some way of compensating these teacher leaders. National Board Certified teachers receive annual bonuses; perhaps those teachers who complete training with the Hawaii Teacher Leader Academy and who commit to serving in a leadership capacity in the Department of Education could receive compensation as well. Another idea would be for the Department to negotiate with the teacher’s union to create a separate category for teacher leaders who would then receive a slight bump in their salary. That may encourage more teachers to agree to take on leadership roles. 

Teacher leaders are important, and I believe that in that role, they gain skills that help them to be more confident and contributing members of their school communities. They experience teaching and learning from a different perspective, and if they decide to return to the classroom, they do so with new skills and strategies under their belt. 

As a principal, I appreciated our teacher leaders; they provided crucial support for their colleagues and were important members of our Leadership Team. We ensured that they were not quasi-administrators; their roles were strictly as support for our teachers. As such, they were essential to improving teaching and learning at our school.