Sunday night is so damn depressing

It is difficult to continue to work hard every day and feel that I am not succeeding. I still feel that I cannot get on top of things... can't quite get my head above water.

Discipline has continued to be a problem. This last week was the worst. Thursday I ended in tears, in front of the children. Friday I started off stern and firm and it was quiet for an hour or so... made me see what is possible, but also despair because of how much it took for me to achieve it.

Thursday, the assistant principal must have heard the students talking about me crying as they left the building, because she was in my classroom within five minutes. She was very supportive and then sent in the reading coach, who works full time as a liaison between teachers and administration (making sure we understand and fulfill their directives, and that we have the resources we need). The reading coach was also extremely supportive and we came up with several ideas for making things go better.

But when I think of implementing them I just feel exhaustion and despair. Sunday is always like this.

I am awash in my own failures. I work hard all week but never seem to get on top of things. I hand out assignments later than I should (when students have already started doing the work for them) and don't have the modified versions ready for the students with disabilities. I let things go that I should stop (students talking back to me, insulting each other, etc.). I feel helpless amid things that I feel I could and should take control of. But it all seems so huge. Probably there are things in there I can't control. But I'm not sure where that line is.

My failures makes me want to slack off, not care, give up. It is hard to work hard and continue to fail.

But I know the students need me... and I want to be a great teacher - I want to be able to succeed with them, and I know the only way to get there is to persevere through many days, weeks, months (hopefully not years!) of being a mediocre teacher.

Still... it's the hardest thing I have ever done.

I write this in hopes that at the end of the year I will be writing chipper "How I Went From Failure to Success" posts and that someday all these posts will encourage another new teacher. Not sure how I will get over the mountain between me and that future, though.