Teacher leaders want to do both 

I was a teacher leader before I was a teacher — at least that is how I described it while interviewing for my first teaching job. 

During my sophomore year in college, I volunteered to drive a university van to drop off preservice teachers for their field placements. We spent the semester working one day a week in classrooms throughout northwest Ohio. I picked up and dropped off my colleagues each Tuesday. I was convinced that this made me a teacher leader — someone who my fellow preservice teachers depended upon, if only for a safe ride in a big brown van.