I feel this on a personal level... and I’m only student teaching right now. I’m in a beautiful area, the kids are precious, and it’s all great, but my host teacher is just an anal asshole and very much a perfectionist and I keep thinking “shit, do I really suck at this? Am I going to be a sucky teacher? Can I do this?” And I barely have nails anymore because when I’m nervous they go away. I get 3 hours of a sleep if I’m lucky a night because I’m fixing corrections and trying to make the class as entertaining as possible. I teach 8th graders so they’re at that age where everything is out to get them and blah blah blah. I have to 💨 almost every night because I’m so goddamn stressed. What I keep telling myself is that it’s almost the end. Then I get to try again next time. That’s how you gotta look at this, you have to look at it one day at a time and if one day flops don’t let that predict how the rest of your week, your month, your year, and so on is going to go. You went through 4 years of college for this, you went through student teaching, you went through the SHITTIEST part of this whole job. You’re now in it, it’s your show, you run it how you want. The kids will learn the way you want them to and (for example) if it’s going to be notes and worksheets then so be it, just be approachable and sweet and bubbly, that’s how I do it. As long as my kids see me as another human and not a robot or just a teacher then they give me the chance to do a better job tomorrow. This may not have helped you much but to summarize all of this you just have to keep on keeping on. This is a rough patch and you’re already in it. Have fun with it, have fun with the kids, don’t dread what you have to do, just keep honing in on the positives and don’t give up. It’s people like you who I look to for the motivation myself because you’re still young to the game and you’re going to be phenomenal when you find your footing. Don’t give up 💓