Winner of the 2013 Voyager Sopris Blog Contest

By Alexandria Mooney

    Since I started teaching, towards the conclusion of every single summer, I get excited, anxious, nervous, and giddy…all at the same time. Another school year is about to start and I have a whirlwind of emotions, sentiments, and feelings swirling around that simple fact.

    It doesn’t matter if I’m returning to the same school I’ve been at for several years or starting at a brand new school; I experience the same feelings. As long as I’m still teaching, I doubt the excitement will ever dwindle. The impending dawn of a new academic year brings a tornado of feelings that just can’t be ignored for many in the teaching profession. But, that’s what’s fantastic, amazing and incredible about the job we do; the rush of emotion, anxiety, and excitement reoccurs at the start of each new school year. I don’t know of many jobs where you get to relive these types of good feelings over and over again.

    A billion thoughts and questions circle my head before a new school year, though for this blog I’ll mention only a few:

  • What will my new students be like?
  • What new tools will I bring to my classroom this year?
  • What will be this year’s struggles?
  • What will I master?
  • How will this year measure up to past school years?

    These are all unknowns as I enjoy the late-summer teacher freedom that is quickly coming to a close. While thinking of these questions, I take mental notes and begin actual plans about how to manage my classroom this year. That is the one and only constant that I can rely on from year to year: I get to decide what goes on in my classroom. Yes, sure, there are standards and objectives and curriculums that we teachers must adhere to, but how we do this in our classroom is up to us. We design the lessons that achieve the objectives, we create the projects that uphold the standards, and we write the curriculum that we feel is essential for our students to know.

    So, despite the many unknowns that circle about the upcoming school year, there is one known entity that will not change: I am in charge of my classroom. Realizing this (even as I type it!) is a relief and calms some of the anxieties and fears about the upcoming school year. I’ve got this. I can do anything. I own my classroom and the educating that takes place in it.

    That’s the beauty of teaching: Despite the anxiety, excitement, and fear, you are in control of what will happen during the new school year. You are at the helm, guiding your year (and students) through calm waters or rough. Yes, there are still some unknowns, like who your students will be or maybe what your new school will be like, but all of that is minutia when you understand that you are firmly in control of your teaching, classroom, and anything that takes place in your domain this year.

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     Alexandria Mooney is preparing for her first year teaching technology at Ursuline Academy in Kirkwood, Missouri. She formerly taught seventh/eighth grade social studies and technology at Maplewood-Richmond Heights Middle School in St. Louis, Missouri. She has a bachelor’s in secondary education and history, and a master’s in educational technology. In 2012 she became a Google Certified Teacher. Visit her at: http://mooneyclasses.blogspot.com/