This guest post is contributed by Shari Conditt, 2015 ESD 112 Teacher of the year. An NBCT, she is her union’s co-president and facilitates a NBPTS cohort for her district.

Sometimes I feel like I’m balancing on a tightrope, fifty feet in the air holding a yellow notepad in one hand and a hot mocha in the other.  Teacher leadership is a lot like that.
I work in a small, rural school district as a full time teacher.  I see over 120 students a day and teach two different AP courses. I developed my district’s national board cohort, a program I created in my district to facilitate teachers as they seek certification.   I am also the teacher’s union co-president, a position I’ve held for the past eight years. I’ve bargained four contracts, implemented TPEP, and worked extensively to mentor teachers and am now in the midst of trying to help teachers as we have a massive shift in our district due to the construction of a new high school.  Despite all of this work, I’ve remained incredibly positive and determined to provide our teachers with as many supports as possible.

I wake up every day wondering how I’m going to keep this ship afloat.  I walk into work ready to challenge my students.  The targets are written, the materials laid out and my mindset is locked in.  As the students roll in, so do the contract questions and employee concerns.  My job is a balancing act. I balance rigor and challenge for my students while problem solving with adults.

Right now, I’m worried. I’m worried that my students will continue to suffer from large class sizes.  I worry that I don’t have enough skills, time, education, resources, and withitness to exhibit the characteristics of a 21^st century educator. I worry that my colleagues feel afraid that if they question the choices or actions of an administrator that they will be terminated.  I worry that I will never get all of my work done and that somehow something will slip through the cracks.  I worry that my district will not survive a crisis that we are in and will earn an unwanted reputation.  I worry that I won’t be able to make it to the school board meeting, the leadership training, the technology training, the department meeting, the building leadership meeting and the faculty meeting because somehow I didn’t transfer it from my Google Calendar to my planner. I worry that my voice will be quieted and I worry that my leadership isn’t enough to help us survive.

This is what it is like to be a teacher-leader in 2015. Instead of feeling like I’m making progress moving across that tightrope, the rope gets higher, the coffee gets hotter, and the notepad heavier.  I wonder if it’s just easier to jump.   There’s a net underneath and surely someone else will step up, right?  But then again, leadership is knowing that even as the rope elevates, the distance across is it still the same.

People keep talking about teacher leadership: what it is and what it isn’t. I will tell you that to me, teacher leadership is more than some politically motivated education jargon. It’s knowing when to progress, when to fight, and when to hold on.  Teacher leadership is being a professional, even when you don’t want to be.  It’s walking into work, even when your heart is breaking for your colleagues.  It’s holding back your tears when your students ask you where Mrs So and So are and why they aren’t coming to school anymore.  It’s wondering whether you have the stamina, grit, perseverance, and wherewithal to find the joy in every day?  But at its best, teacher leadership is having hope that the tide will change and that the journey across the rope will go faster if I throw the notepad out and guzzle the coffee.