ACT on Leadership

On May 8, 2010, the National Board Resource Center (NBRC) at Stanford University hosted an event to celebrate teacher leadership.  (The NBRC is the umbrella program under which Accomplished California Teachers operates).  The occasion was the final support meeting for current National Board candidates, and ACT helped to bring in some speakers to talk about the National Board certification, and about teacher leadership more broadly.  Our guests included: Kay Garcia, one of the state directors for the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards; Larry Aceves, a local candidate for State Superintendent of Public Instruction; Chris Thomsen, a local school board trustee; and Anthony Cody, a leading member of ACT, also known for his Teacher Magazine blog and his activism efforts through Teachers’ Letters to Obama (on Facebook).  (Another somewhat local candidate for Superintendent, Tom Torlakson, was invited but could not attend).

In this clip, one of the 2010 California Teachers of the Year, Valerie Ziegler, of San Francisco, talks about her experience beginning National Board certification through the Take One! program, and then talks about teacher leadership in her district and in the region.

In the second clip, Sandy Dean, the NBRC Director, describes the leadership portion of the NBPTS mission, and then introduces me.  I take on the challenge of speaking after Valerie, and reflect on my own path into teacher leadership, which began in June 1994, in the same room where I was speaking that day.  My message was that every teacher should be aiming to be a teacher of the year, aiming to excel in some aspect of the the profession.