i have never been on here, so I am new to your forum and teaching too. I was in a teacher degree program and I left because I have anxiety disorder and student teaching through me for a loop. I was in two placements, but I couldn't handle everything thrown at me at once with no assistance from mentor teachers. I know everyone says thats how it is. But, I am wondering if I should not continue to persue teaching as a career. I talked with my college professor and he said that I can move to another school, but when I started in that new school with older students in high school. I had so much anxiety I couldn't stand it. I told my college professor I didn't have an interest in teaching right now, because of my anxiety. I love teaching and the kids, but I have had such a rough student teaching experience I don't know what to do.
If you can't get your anxiety under control enough to handle a student teaching placement, then teaching might not be for you. Actual teaching is a lot more stressful than student teaching, even in the best and most supportive environments.
Teaching is very stressful and (as a first year teacher) causes me a lot of anxiety :/ Maybe you could consider another career that would still allow you to work with children? You could always come back to teaching if your anxiety improves. I know from experience that anxiety can be a tough thing to deal with!
If the anxiety with student teaching is too much, then yeah, the teaching field is not the right place for you right now. You could always try being an instructional assistant, although that may be tough to pay the bills.
I agree with the others... until you can get your anxiety under control, teaching will not be for you.
If you want to stay in education and work with children / teenagers, you need to find a profession that doesn't have to deal with a classroom full of students at a time, it's either small groups or one on one. For example counseling, tutoring (although you probably couldn't make enough to live comfortable) or be a para, where you're not responsible for the entire classroom and are not alone with students (in some districts they're paid quite well) I agree with others though, if you can't handle student teaching, teaching wouldn't work. Student teaching is harder and easier at the same time as teaching, so it kind of evens out. But you still gotta be able to control a class without getting your anxiety the best of you.
This is what I was thinking. Working one-on-one or with small groups of students is a much different dynamic. Plus, if you're tutoring, you'll (usually) be working with kids who want to be there, not a classroom full of students whose goal is to put you over the edge with their behavior.
