As a teacher midway through my career, I suddenly found that I began to struggle when having conversations with colleagues and students. I needed some kind of tactic that would re-energize my teaching; and I found it when I began looking into a doctorate at OAESA. Almost instantly as I began my preparation to pursue my doctorate, I found myself challenged and invigorated. Filling out the application, writing the letter of intent, and putting together the letters of recommendation were exciting and intimidating at the same time. Through this process, I noticed that my dream was growing into a leadership vision. These preparation experiences also heightened my awareness of my students’ anxieties, and I began to empathize more compassionately with them. I also found myself wanting to challenge them to reach for their dreams, as I had done, and encourage them more strongly and purposely. I found that I had a renewed sense of patience for their learning, and I wanted to dig deeper with them and lead their learning more intently.
I had previously found myself feeling less confident prior to starting this doctorate degree. Over this past year, I have begun to understand much more from a whole-building perspective, and from a leadership point of view.
All leaders begin as teachers. All teachers are leaders in their classroom. I lead five different grade levels of music each day. The task to switch from each emotional mindset is challenging. Over a period of ten years, the task has become more challenging as students’ emotional needs are evolving. After my internship last year and now that I’m more than half way through this program, I am much more competent at any and every conversation. I understand people and can see into situations instead of thinking from a onesided perspective.
Teacher leadership is critical. Finding new collaborative tools, tools that have been proven successful through research, is a very exciting development in my teaching career.
The doors have flown open in the last months with employment opportunities of leadership, having ripe, educational conversations with colleagues, and building incremental growth with professional and community relationships. This process has begun a new chapter of life for me, and I am quite excited to see which doors open next. Even though every day is not rosy and I still meet adversity frequently, I have the skills that enable my mindset to focus on the vision of being a leader through “servitude: and gracious collaborative learning.