Cheesy But True

Winning beginnings. How can a teacher win before she crosses the finish line? Isn’t that like counting your chickens before they hatch? I get it; the right attitude at the starting line is essential. A confident, positive, ready to show the world strategy sounds like the correct approach. But isn’t that how the hare began his race against the tortoise? And besides, that is absolutely not how I am feeling as the days leading up to the new school year seem to quickly dissipate.

I am facing some intriguing changes as I prepare for the new year.  And questions scurry through my brain like a mouse through a maze with the promise of a cheesy reward. A new principal sits in the corner office at our school. A dark cloud has perched itself over our high school for more than a year. Will our new leader bring back the sunshine? The new English curriculum, aligned with the Iowa Core, greets teachers and students this year. How will the students receive it? How will we teachers present it? Can we remain positive and persevere through this high pressure system? Three English teachers new to my district join our department of five. Will they find me congenial and helpful? Will they be effective in the classroom? I am teaching two classes new to me: English 12 and AP Literature. Will I be able to motivate my students to learn and succeed? Will I be able to tap into students’ personal gifts and convince them that they are indeed essential members of my classroom? And two questions that truly leaves me wondering: Am I up for the AP challenge? Will I be effective as a teacher of this class?

I, like so many other English teachers, have not taken the summer off. I have been writing L to J tests, I have taken the AP training, and I am engrossed in the process of preparing. I guess my current efforts resemble that of the tortoise. I need to call upon his tenacity, his drive, his will to succeed. However, I am also concerned that this slow and steady pace will put my students to sleep and leave me with course outcomes and components untaught and untested at the end of the year. I fear that once the chaos of the year is upon me, I will be unlike the hare or the tortoise, and will more closely resemble the mouse scurrying through the maze trying to remember where I put that quiz or expo marker.

It’s time to take a deep breath, to remember why I teach, to remember what motivates me, to call upon that impalpable yet interminable energy. The source of that intangible vivacity is not impalpable at all. It walks, it talks, and I can attach names to it. That ebullience belongs to my students. Like almost all educators, my students stimulate my desire to teach, to wake up every work day morning, to haul my tired body into the school building. Their collective minds inspire me. I cannot control the cloud hanging over my school. I only know it will dissipate in my classroom. With the assistance of my students, winning beginnings take all forms and attitudes. Sometimes I will be tenacious, sometimes I will be confident, and sometimes I will scurry around looking for those cheesy rewards. So bring on the challenges of the new school year. As long as my students continue to learn, continue to greet me with their frank questions, and as long as I am able to create an atmosphere where everyone is welcome to show and use their individual geniuses, my beginning will assure that they, my students, are the winners. So I will indeed count on all my eggs to hatch into students ready to tackle life in the twenty-first century.

Robin McHone Hundt has been teaching for almost 20 years, ten of those in Glenwood. She has taught sixth through twelfth grade English, Communications, and Journalism classes. Prior to moving to Glenwood, Hundt taught in Virginia Beach, VA; Des Moines, IA; Atchison, KS; Kearney, NE; and Council Bluffs, IA. This year she is teaching English 12, AP Literature, and Communications. In addition, Mrs. Hundt coaches the mock trial team She graduated from the University of Iowa with a double major in journalism/mass communications and English. Before becoming a teacher, she worked in public relations, advertising, and printing. Hundt earned her English teaching certification from Virginia Wesleyan University. She is married to Bryan and has three children: Jimmy, 23; Sami,17; and Allie 14. She also has an ancient German Short-hair named Gauge.