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When I met Dorothy Davis, she was a high school English teacher and yearbook advisor at Amador Valley High School in Pleasanton, CA and I was the newly appointed curriculum coordinator for the school district. It was my first leadership position beyond the school site level, and with two other colleagues, I had oversight for the full range of PK-12 curriculum for the Pleasanton Valley Unified School District. Dorothy and I immediately began working together on a variety of projects, and she was so incredibly talented that I remember being quite surprised that until she and I met, other educators had not tapped her for leadership opportunities. Although the body of empirical research on teacher leadership did not begin until the early 2000s, what I instinctively discerned as a young district office administrator was the vast potential of teachers as leaders.
Although I was younger than she, Dorothy considered me her mentor and inspiration to cultivate her own leadership potential. I found this role a profoundly humbling responsibility that quite caught me by surprise. She elected to seek formal PK-12 leadership preparation, earned her administrative services credential, and became a vice principal not too many years after we began working together. Mentoring became a recurring theme of my educational leadership journey, where I both sought out mentors and served as one. Today in both PK-12 and higher education, we find more formal structures for mentor teachers and peer mentors, and just as with teacher leadership, the mentorship literature is abundant.
Last week I was honored to attend the Santa Barbara County Education Office’s Annual A Salute to Teachers celebration. The county honored many great teachers and the inspiring stories produced a small flood of joyous tears as we learned about their lives. While I am new to the region, our profession is quite well networked, so it was with great pleasure that I enjoyed a lovely reunion with two of my former doctoral students: Dr. Donna Lewis, who recently retired as Superintendent of Goleta Union School District, and Dr. Hilda Maldonado, current Superintendent of Santa Barbara Unified School District. While we reminisced about the arduous journey of the doctorate, we also reflected on the power of mentoring—how together we each inspired the other through the twists and turns of the journey and how our time together led them to their work as leaders today.
Fully energized by the weekend’s event, I returned to campus on Monday to find a lovely email from one of our professors, Dr. Annie White, who shared with me thoughts of one of her former students, Zoe Remund Aveling:
I was accepted to a master's program in occupational therapy at the University of Sydney starting in February 2023. I wanted to share this news with you as I wholeheartedly believe that it was your influence in my life that pushed me to pursue this next step in my education. You made me believe in my abilities, you showed me what a passion for working with children could be, and you helped me realize that I want to give more to children and my communities than I feel I currently am.
I really miss being in classes with you and just the feeling of inspiration and empowerment I felt while enveloped in your classes. You instilled in me such a sense of meaning for the work of teaching and caring for children, and I am forever grateful for that. I think of you and your teaching every day, reminding myself to strive for the kind of teacher and person (and soon occupational therapist) I want to be. Thank you for everything.
Inspiration on top of inspiration. Impact that endures.
Christa McAuliffe, who was to be the first teacher to go to space, but whose life ended in the Space Shuttle Challenger tragedy in 1986, said,
I touch the future. I teach.
Just like Christa, my friend and colleague, Dorothy Davis, died young. Dorothy, always the teacher, made sure her son gave each of us a gift at her funeral—the children’s book on dying, Badger’s Parting Gifts. The story tells of the deep grief Badger’s friends experience on his death, but then, on reflection, the timeless treasures that he left them: the values he taught and the memories they shared.
None of us knows the number of days we have, but we can choose, moment-by-moment, what fills those days. I choose to touch the future. I teach.
Yours for the journey,
Elizabeth
Elizabeth C. Orozco Reilly
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