Will I ever be good enough

So right now I am student teaching in an elementary school. I'm with the kids Monday through Friday all day long and eventually I will teach a lesson and a unit. But, my mentor teacher makes me feel really fucking stupid sometimes. I'm obviously still learning how to teach and be an effective educator but she doesn't make it easy. She is very intimidating and doesn't really seem to care about me and never gives me an opportunity to teach the class or lead circle time or anything. I literally just sit here and occasionally help kids if they have questions. She makes me feel very insecure about my teaching abilities and it sucks. I know I'm in her space and in her classroom but I feel like she should be so much more willing to teach me and let me do things. The other day I accidentally copied a paper wrong, I did two of the same pages and she made this whole big thing of it and sent me back to make correct copies (I get it, she needed the papers for her lesson but it was a genuine mistake). And I have no issue going to fix the copies but she made me feel so stupid. She scolded me about the papers and said "Well they were copied wrong so now some of them don't have the right pages. You're gonna have to go make new copies" but she said it in a very nasty tone in front of the whole class and another school employee. Like it was an accident and the copier at the school is confusing, but it's just a paper. And another teacher in the grade we are in has a student teacher as well. And she always talks about how her student teacher is amazing and he's doing so well, but my mentor teacher NEVER says anything positive about me and it makes me feel like shit. It makes me feel like she annoyed that I'm there and like she thinks I'm going to be a shit teacher. It just hurts because I do not feel supported or wanted in this classroom. I feel like I burden her and she doesn't want me here. Even though she volunteered to have a student teacher. And a lot of my classmates are having such great experiences and they love student teaching and I really wish that was me. I don't hate it, but I don't love it as much as I feel like I should. I feel less prepared to be a teacher now than when I first started college.

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anonymous School March 10, 2023 at 8:37 am 0 0