Losing Confidence

You know when you start to clean a room how it always seems to get messier before it gets clean?

Welcome to my life.

It is a bad analogy, but it is the best I could come up with after an emotionally draining day. Today's lesson was the worst lesson I have ever taught. It was really frustrating. My short introduction took my entire lesson to get through and I was so frazzled b/c of behavior, lack of sleep, finding out my favorite student had dropped summer school (which turned out to be false), negotiating my learning and training as a teacher, buying into a rewards/consequence system that I cannot stand, and a lack of materials prep (yay bus detour) that I could not get control of my class and it went down hill quickly.

I really haven't had that awesome day yet, but most have been decent--some better than others--but today in combination with yesterday has me frustrated, emotionally drained, and without much confidence in myself. I feel like while trying to balance so much new learning and strategies and the pressure to move so quickly through concepts that I have lost my teaching style, my teachers voice. It is beyond frustrating. I was so close to crying it was not even funny. I would have cried if not for an awesome FA who helped me gain some perspective and begin to create an action plan for tomorrow. (That and a few empathetic CMs who listened/shared in venting with me--at least I know I am not the only one in this place).

Tomorrow is a new day. It will be better. I have a plan in place to make some changes and the supports to help me do so. My kids deserve a confident teacher. Today they did not learn, tomorrow they will. Welcome to life as a CM.