This article recounts my experience of developing as a teacher leader in Philadelphia. When I worked at a traditional high school, a hierarchical leadership structure frustrated my attempts to foster teacher leadership among colleagues. By building networks of teachers outside my own school, I found the relationships and opportunities that helped…

Teacher development does not stop when a degree is earned--at that point, it has barely taken flight. Real teacher growth happens when meaningful time and safe and authentic space are given to discussing and refining practice under the guidance of a pedagogically and contextually experienced mentor. Here, one teacher leader recounts her purposeful…

Many people have ideas about what it means to teach in inner-city schools, but they are often off the mark. This essay explores the challenges, beauties, and complexities of working in an alternative/transfer school in New York City, with a population that is at very high risk for dropping out. Through individual portraits of students, the author…