My Journey from Classroom Teacher to Teacher Leader

“Me? A Teacher Leader? No way, I’m just a follower. I’m good at following directions. How can I LEAD my fellow colleagues who have decades more teaching experience than me?” These were the anxious thoughts that immediately came to mind at the beginning of the school year when I took on the challenge of being a Design Team member of my site’s ILT (Instructional Leadership Team). After a really enlightening year working with Lead by Learning on my teaching, to shift my thought process from “I’m not doing good enough” to “I wonder how…”, my Lead by Learning coaches and my administrators felt like I was ready to move to the next step of leading colleagues to make similar shifts. 

• I had learned the value of focal students and of various types of data. 
• I had learned how to be courageous and vulnerable in sharing publicly my thought processes and struggles. 
• I had learned the power of truly listening to others, not immediately giving suggestions. 
• I had learned the strength of “messy thinking”.
• In my Lead by Learning coach Malia’s famous words, I learned that “Wherever you are is the right place to be”. 

I felt like I was already a better teacher after that one year of inspiring work. But I didn’t think I was ready to lead my colleagues in this inquiry process because I just barely learned how to shift my own thinking! I suddenly reverted back to “I won’t be good enough to help others because I don’t have enough experience to have the answers for veteran teachers.”

As a learner myself, writing has always been the opposite of a forte for me; it was always an area I struggled with in school because I never knew what to write about or how to craft it in a way that sounded educated. So, ironically, in my first year with Lead by Learning and learning via an inquiry process with focal students, I wanted to concentrate on how to improve my teaching in regard to kindergarten writing. Writing in kindergarten is hard because they start with learning letter names and sounds in the first trimester. The goal is multiple independent sentences by the end of kindergarten! After watching my focal students and my whole class make huge growth in writing, and in their self-esteem (they were all so proud of themselves, as they should be), I knew that the inquiry process made a big difference and helped me grow as an educator.

I wanted to continue on that momentum and everything I had learned the previous year regarding writing instruction with my class. However, this year’s extra challenge was being a teacher leader, and supporting my colleagues in the inquiry process. In the beginning of the year, I felt so nervous and unsure how to proceed. When we had grade-level meetings, I wasn’t “leading” anything, just facilitating the meeting and keeping us on track with nuts and bolts (upcoming dates, field trip details, etc.). I knew that this would be a big mental roadblock for me to overcome. Beyond the struggle with being a leader, I also had a hard time comprehending how to balance between being a teacher who focused on her inquiry with her class and being a teacher leader who guided her colleagues in starting the inquiry process.

During the year, I felt like my role on the Design Team became more and more important. The Design Team was comprised of myself, another teacher leader, my admin team (principal and vice principal), and our Lead by Learning Coach. As a collective, we discussed how each ILT meeting went and worked together to plan the agendas and next steps for future ILT meetings and Action Research staff meetings. I was the voice to represent classroom teachers in our meetings, the voice to provide insight into the daily struggle of keeping up with the inquiry process while managing everything else. Our coach, Mahru, and my administrators really honored my voice, and I felt so heard, and so valued. We tried out ideas, we collected feedback and data via surveys. We listened to the needs of our staff.  It was the most collaborative experience I’ve had as a teacher and teacher leader. 

The brightest light bulb moment for me was the gradual release of responsibility. As an ILT, we didn’t want to just release each ILT member to “fend for themselves” and figure out how to support and lead their team. We worked together as partner team leads to demonstrate the Public Learning protocol to our grade-level teams. We started staff meetings as whole groups before breaking into grade level teams or mixed grade bands (for example, Kindergarten and 3rd grade teams together). The responsibility to lead our staff in the inquiry process didn’t just fall on the shoulders of each ILT member individually; we worked together so collaboratively that it didn’t feel so daunting of a task. In reflecting on previous meetings and planning for the next Action Research sessions, I realized just how much work our admin does to facilitate and lead these meetings. I’m so glad we were able to work as a Design Team and an ILT to share that load so that our admin could participate in the inquiry process with us. Participating in the Design Team this year made me feel empowered. It made me feel like I was part of the bigger picture, that I was truly able to go beyond being a classroom teacher, and that I had the capacity to support my colleagues as a teacher leader while still managing the daily load of being a teacher. 

One of the biggest takeaways from our two years working with Lead by Learning is the power of think alone time. At every ILT meeting, staff meeting, and grade level meeting, we intentionally set aside time to think alone and process information. It provided a quiet time for us to reflect on our journey with our students and with our data. At Halkin, every grade level had an Inquiry Journal to write in, a tool we adopted from Lead by Learning. This became such an influential and important tool for my grade level team because it provided the space to really focus our thinking about our focal student and the growth they made as the year progressed. Beyond the think-alone time, I do think that our team really embraced the value of equity of voice and respectful listening during moments of vulnerability like Public Learning and sharing student data. 

Admittedly,  while I don’t think I was stellar in either role (as a teacher who really emphasized the inquiry process with data collection and her focal students, or as a teacher leader who supported her colleagues with this new way of thinking), I am still proud to say I balanced both. The power of “messy thinking” really came through, and I will be constantly reminding myself in times of mental struggle that not everything I do can be done perfectly, not everything can be wrapped up neatly with a bow, and that’s okay! The juggling throughout the year was challenging, but I now know that yes, I really can be a leader and yes, I really AM a leader. I feel energized about what we’d like to improve going forward for next year. I feel inspired by how to launch the inquiry process next year with my ILT. Lead by Learning has helped me grow so much, and I can’t wait to support my colleagues with their inquiry processes next year! 

Melissa Lew is a kindergarten teacher at Halkin Elementary in San Leandro Unified. She has just finished her 6th year of teaching kindergarten, but has been lucky to work with students for more than a decade in multiple elementary schools across SLUSD. When she’s not scrolling through “Teacher-Gram” on Instagram for more ideas to bring joy and fun to her little kinders, she likes to spend her free time with her family at home, or at Disneyland with her friends. Her students know that her three favorite things are “sleeping, eating, and Disney!”

Interested in working with Lead by Learning to support professional learning for your instructional leadership team and teacher leaders? Connect with a member of our team to learn more about our partnerships.