Metaphor is at the heart of all the great stories, and for many of us, at the heart of all the great personal success stories, is a teacher. Google who has been inspired by teachers, you’ll find names like Barrack Obama, Bill Gates, and Martin Luther King attribute teachers to inspiring them. As a teacher and school leader I am inspired everyday by educators. To tell this story about teachers and teacher leadership I find a good wine always helps… Deep in the Barossa Valley sits Langmeil Winery and when visiting I learnt about the Freedom Vine. The Freedom Vine is the world’s oldest Shiraz producing wine. The grapes, produce exceptional wine however the vine itself produced very few grapes. After some experimenting the vigneron planted younger “teenage” vines in between each Freedom Vine. As a result the “teenage” vines started to produce higher quality and quantities of grapes by imitating the Freedom Vines’ growing patterns. This story resonated with me and my personal story of success. I have my own (educational) Freedom Vines sitting either side of me.

The first is an unassuming, exceptional woman. In my first year of teaching, I met my first Freedom Vine. An extraordinary teacher at the end of her teaching career, who expected excellence from her students, colleagues and especially from the teachers she mentored and inspired. If you ever have the pleasure of meeting Joie she would tell you, it has nothing to do with her. The thing is, for me it has everything to do with her. I have built my career on pushing the envelope, being innovative, pursuing excellence with the deep belief this can be achieved from any postcode in Australia.

My second Freedom Vine is ACEL itself. I was introduced to the ACEL family as an enthusiastic teacher in 2011. ACEL challenged my thinking about leadership, the rigour of education research, practice and the power of networking. It was at this point I became intentional about my leadership. I don’t mean positional, I mean the leadership within and from the ground up. Through learning and experiences with ACEL I understood the power of networks and the ability to lead others.

I attended the NT Branch meetings and used this network to develop Teacher Leader “teach meet” style events. We invited leaders and teachers to network together and share experiences through Q&A panels, showcasing the extraordinary leadership in the Northern Territory. This year our intent is to expand these events past Darwin to rural and remote communities. Connect teachers and school leaders across the Territory through simple platforms like twitter and Facebook to showcase leadership across the NT. It has been through the ACEL side of my Freedom Vine that I have been able to scale up my relationship with Joie and transfer this to other leaders. My aim through ACEL NT is to expand and continue to build networks which will develop and showcase leadership in teachers, school leaders and especially in students regardless of their postcode.