So it is officall Alexandria Mooney of Maplewood-Richmond Heights Middle School in St. Louis, Missouri is the winner of the 2013 VoyagerSopris Blog Contest. You will be hearing from her every month right here as Edview360.com. Thanks to everyone you submitted a blog article for consideration.
Below is Alexandria's winning blog article.
Letter to a New Teacher from Her Future Self
By Alexandria Mooney
Oh, what I wouldn’t give to go back to my fresh-out-of‐college new teacher self and give her a talking to about what teaching really is. Since I can’t do that currently (still waiting for that time machine to emerge ... thanks, H.G. Wells, for the false hope) I’ve instead written an open letter to my brand-new teacher self about what teaching is really about.
Dear Self,
Congratulations! You’ve done it; you’ve graduated with that coveted degree, earned your teaching certificate, received certification in the areas you want to teach, and you’re out to change the world—one student at a time.
Do not lose this luster for teaching or positive attitude ... ever. Teaching is amazing, rewarding, exciting, and life‐changing, just as you’d hoped it would be. But it also is challenging, gut‐wrenching, time‐sucking, and tiresome. To say you are naive about teaching is an understatement; you are absolutely clueless about what teaching really is. But please don’t take that in a bad way; I simply want to tell you that you don’t really know what it is until you experience it firsthand, on your own, in your own classroom.
Take the last four years (or five ... it’s OK; some people like to do a “victory lap” to savor those beloved college years) and forget what you’ve learned in your education classes. OK, maybe don’t forget everything, but be open and willing to learn and do things completely differently from what you read in your 20-year‐old textbooks or from professors who might have been out of the classroom longer than you’ve been alive.
Realize the school you’re walking into is not going to be a perfect school in a perfect town with all perfect students (hint: that doesn’t exist). You may be graced with limited resources, a classroom full of used, half-broken supplies, and more students enrolled in your class than you have enough desks for. As dire as your situation may look, put all of that aside. Forget your seemingly uphill battle and focus on your students.
It would be great if all students were independent learners and made the right choices 100% of the time (they wouldn’t need us!), but that’s not reality. Therefore, the students are the No. 1 reason you’re a teacher; without them, you wouldn’t have a profession. (Note that I said profession and not job; teaching isn’t something you arrive at in the morning to exactly where you left off the day before; it is something that becomes your life, becomes who you are. You’ll spend countless hours in the evening and on weekends grading papers, replying to parent and student e-mails, creating lessons, and much more ... but, trust me, it’s worth it).
Teaching is infinitely more difficult if you don’t know your students. Regardless of where you teach or the resources you have at your disposal, you’ll be in a time crunch to get through the content and material you’re supposed to cover (hello, Common Core!). Don’t let that deter you from getting to know your students. Play team-building games, spark up conversations in the hallways, start class with a get‐to‐know-you activity, find out what they enjoy doing outside of school, and make contact with their parents or guardians. More often than not, when students see you taking an interest in them, they’ll take an interest in what you have to say.
The relationships you build with your students will carry over into your lessons, and you’ll find that your teaching has a purpose now. Plus, once you know your kids, creating lesson plans that you know they’ll connect with and get the most out of (while still hitting the standards) is much easier.
Know that you’ll have good days and bad days; teaching isn’t always sunshine and rainbows. There will be days when you question why you even went into teaching; days when you’ll cry on your drive home, convincing yourself you’re the worst teacher in the world (you’re not, by the way); and days when you’re ready to deliver your resignation letter to your principal. Stick with it. Because, for all the days that make you think this way, it just takes a student high‐fiving you in the hallway, a positive e-mail from a parent, or the look on a student’s face after they finally “get” the concept you’ve been teaching for more than a week to make you realize that all you do is worth it.
Use your resources! Collaboration is the best thing you can do as a teacher. You’re not going to be an all-star Teacher of the Year right out of the gate. But you can be one day if you embrace the truth that you do not know everything and seek out the resources you need to become a rockstar. There are resources everywhere—from veteran teachers to social media—that can make you an amazing teacher. Soak up as many professional development opportunities as you can! You’re never too good to steal—er, borrow—ideas from others. They’re out there for a reason: they work. Use them. (Hint: you’ll still be doing this years after you started teaching.)
Remember that luster I mentioned at the beginning of this letter? Still have it? I hope you do because it takes a strong person to be a teacher, and I know you have that in you. Teaching is not the highest-paying profession (by a long shot!), but I will say it has to be one of the most rewarding.
Through whatever ups and downs you have in your career, just know you are making a difference in the lives of countless students. Years down the road they may not remember every single thing they learned in your classroom, but they will remember you and the impact you made on their lives. Keeping this in sight makes each and every tiresome, amazing, challenging, awesome, awful, exciting day worth every teeny, tiny second.
All the best,
Your Future Self
Alexandria Mooney is a 7th/8th grade social studies and technology teacher at Maplewood-Richmond Heights Middle School in St. Louis, Missouri. She has a bachelor’s degree in secondary education and history, a master’s degree in educational technology. In 2012 she became a Google Certified Teacher. Visit her at: http://mooneyclasses.blogspot.com/
