After 15 years of blissful teaching, when encouraged the first time from my principal to pursue an administrator licensure program, my reaction was, You have got to be kidding me! Thanks for the vote of confidence, but no thanks. I really just want to share my expertise as an elementary teacher, and learn with and from other teachers. I had no interest in obtaining an administrator license, nor did I have extra time. In addition to teaching first grade full time, I was also extremely busy as a mother of two teenage athletic daughters, a wife, a 4-H leader, and an assistant coach of Middle School Cross Country! Apparently, my principal did not realize that when I said, Thanks, but no thanks, I actually meant it! I guess I was somewhat to blame for his misinterpretation. Over the years, I had built my own reputation of having difficulty saying no to just about anything, a character trait common to teacher leaders.
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Pike, L. (2009). I Don’t Want to be a Principal! I Want to be a Teacher Leader!. In: Wieseman, K.C., Weinburgh, M.H. (eds) Women’s Experiences in Leadership in K-16 Science Education Communities. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-2239-4_14
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