Q: How can school administrators help expand opportunities for teacher leadership?
A: I truly believe many administrators are seeking ways to encourage teachers to take on leadership roles. I am very fortunate to work for one of those administrators who is not threatened or intimated by teachers taking charge of various aspects of the school’s program. Often it just takes an administrator suggesting to a teacher ways their talents can be used and then providing an option for them. The key, of course, is for administrators to really nurture teachers in these leadership roles by creating the supports teachers need to lead without burning out.
Q: What can teacher preparation programs do to prepare teachers for leadership roles?
A: I’m encouraged to see that many institutions of higher education now see the early preparation of teacher leaders as part of their mission. My own alma mater, Samford University in Birmingham, is a leader is this area, and I was pleased when I earned my doctorate in Educational Leadership that Samford fully supported my interest in researching teacher leadership. I strongly believe that the obligation of leadership needs to be addressed in the pre-service curriculum, where we must implant the idea that part of our duty as professional educators is to give back to our profession.
Q: What can teacher leadership do for our nation’s education system in a broad sense?
A: It is a new day for teachers! I believe the new leadership roles that teachers are taking on in schools will allow us to serve children better and will have a lasting impact on student achievement. As a teacher leader, I have embraced what Albert Shanker once said: “As teachers, we must constantly improve schools and we must keep working at change and experimenting and trying until we have developed ways of reaching every child.”
About Dr. Betsy Rogers
On April 30, 2003, before a White House audience, President George W. Bush presented to the American people the 2003 National Teacher of the Year, Dr. Betsy Rogers of Birmingham, Alabama. As a first and second grade teacher at Leeds Elementary School in Jefferson County, Alabama, Dr. Rogers provided students with a safe, caring, and intellectually engaging environment, a philosophy reflected in the statement on her classroom door: You are entering the world of a child. Some of her students faced poverty, abuse, and neglect at home, making school, as she has learned, the best place for them.
