This chamber is a great resource for a new teacher, but I'm not sure I believe I can make it through student teaching, let alone a career.

This is a vent post, and if you want to tell me to GTFO, it's okay. I'm just feeling really hopeless right now. <br><br>I've been a student teacher for three weeks. Two at a middle school, and one at my current placement, a high school. It's been a wild ride, and not in a good way. <br><br>I teach two preps, and the kids can't spell like they can't do anything else. I had a paper turned in to me that said, in part, "I think/ believe that a good teacher encourages you and/ but is also strict." I felt like I was having a stroke. I was a good high school English student, like a super good one. My teacher made sure we knew how to spell, made sure we could write a proper paragraph, made sure we could spell the word "their" and use it correctly. I was shocked that people who were going to be graduating this year couldn't write that well. I chalked it up to kids not being good spellers (I was a good one so I tend to forget others may not have been.) <br><br>I'm doing a lesson on identity with my seniors, and they can't spell. Not the special ed kids who are in my class, but the gen ed kids. They can't spell basic words. Some kids can't spell their own name. Like... what? How? How did they get this far? <br><br>I know that blame lies with the previous teachers. But it feels like I have to be a third grade English teacher and a senior English teacher. I feel like I'm failing, like I can't do it. I cry after each block, because I feel defeated. I look at my lesson plans, and realize that most of them require kids to know how to spell.<br><br>I don't know if this is something I can do, because I feel completely defeated, partly because I think I'm a bad teacher. I talk too much, the kids don't listen to me like they do my mentor, and I don't have "classroom management skills." I've watched YouTube videos, taken a class on it, and nothing works. <br><br>I also feel like I'm failing as an English teacher because my kids, seniors, can't spell. I know I can't fix everything, but I feel like I need to, like my career depends on it. The kids like my lessons, but because they can't spell, they complain that "You expect too much of us" when I ask them to write a five paragraph essay. <br><br>I just don't know if I can do it. I can't fail like this, I have loans that need to be paid. But I don't know if I'm cut out for this. I just wonder what other teachers experience, because it seems like my mentor is over me like white on rice. I don't know. I just feel so lost, like I'm failing.