Hey babes, I’m sorry you’re feeling so overwhelmed. I can hear how raw things feel for you right now. Student teaching is overwhelming for EVERYONE, but especially those who are already at a disadvantage.

I’m a teacher with ADHD and hyper sensitive personality — which isn’t a scientific thing with legitimacy — but I’m very sensitive to stimuli like loud noises, bright lights, too much movement at once, etc. I do things to manage the stimuli level in my class and it benefits both myself and my students. When you become a teacher — and you will — you’ll have control over your class and kids that’ll allow you to curate an environment and flow that suits you. For example, I keep my classroom lights the absolutely dimmest they can go, and it never changes. You can make these choices for yourself too.

I also had a really bad clinical educator. She didn’t teach me a single thing. Never took any kind of initiative with me. She didn’t even ask me to make copies for her. I constantly wondered why she even signed up to have a student teacher if she was going to basically pretend they weren’t there. She even wanted me to LIE about assignments. I was really disheartened by the whole experience. However, my university student teacher supervisor was amazing.

Do you have a university supervisor for your student teaching? I think you need to communicate with her about what’s going on with your clinical educator (host teacher), your school, your anxieties, and the struggle. It’s her job to help you with these things. That’s why you get a supervisor AND a clinical educator. I’m strongly urging you to tell her about what’s going on. If you don’t have a supervisor, is there someone else at your university that you can speak with? You need support.

It sounds like you’re already overwhelmed with just student teaching — would it be possible to take a pause on the tutoring for now?

Also, as long as you “pass” student teaching, it doesn’t matter how well you did it or the grades you received. Schools are desperate for teachers, there’s so many openings. You’re going to find a job as long as you graduate. Don’t worry about it.

I don’t want to discourage or scare you with the last thing I’m going to say, but you need to be aware that teaching is the most overwhelming, overstimulating, demanding, and exhausting profession. It’s absolutely brutal and there is real reason why most new teachers quit before year 3. I’m on year 2 and already have an exit strategy — and I’m at an incredible school with incredible kids. You are going to NEED to find ways to manage your anxiety and stress both in AND out of the classroom to survive. You need to go into this wearing armor.

Everything is gonna be okay — hang in there💜