Opening My Classroom: What Mentoring Taught Me About Instructional Leadership

I have taught for over 17 years.

I can run my art room in my sleep. I can feel when the energy is about to shift and I know exactly which transition needs tightening. I know how to bring 26 students back to attention without raising my voice.

So, when I mentor a first-year teacher or host a college art education intern, something unexpected happens. I have to let go of control. That is vulnerable.

Because when someone else teaches in your room, it is not just their lesson on display. It is your systems, your routines, your classroom culture. If something feels loose, it reflects on both of you.

Recently, directions ran long and students started moving before they were supposed to. I felt it instantly. That internal pull to jump in and fix it rose up fast. After years of teaching, you know exactly how to reset a room in seconds.

But I did not step in.

If I always rescue the lesson, they never build the muscle. Instead, we debriefed after class. I did not say, “You lost them.” We looked at structure. Where were expectations unclear? Were directions concise enough? Was the stop cue explicitly taught and practiced?

Then we stood in the empty room and rehearsed it. We practiced the cue the same way I have my students practice. We tightened the language and cut the directions in half. We decided exactly what students should do the moment they heard the signal.

The next class, they taught it again. It landed. Not because it was perfect, but because it was practiced.

This is how I mentor. I teach the teacher the same way I teach my students. I do not just explain routines. We rehearse them. We script the first sentence. We remove unnecessary words. We clarify the action students are expected to take. Structure comes first. Freedom lives inside it.

Clear expectations create calm. Practice builds confidence. Choice comes after clarity. It is the same system I use with 700 students, and it works because it is predictable, transferable, and intentional.

Opening my classroom to another educator means letting them see the parts I am still refining. It means explaining why I open class the way I do and why I insist on practicing transitions before materials are ever passed out. It means naming the thinking behind the moves.

Leadership is measured by transferability. If your systems only work in your hands, they are not strong enough yet. Leadership is not personality. It is clarity. It is the discipline of naming your why and equipping someone else to execute it well.

If your classroom only works when you are the one running it, it is not leadership yet. 

If you stepped out tomorrow, what would hold steady and what would fall apart?