Monday April 15th 2024

For some context: I'm in my second year of college, studying education in hopes to be a teacher. And every year you need to do an internship, you are assigned a school and a class where you need to help and give lessons for one day of the week every week (so every Monday I need to go to the school and give lessons and help). This is randomly chosen by my college. And at the end of the year you need to give lessons for 3 weeks straight (called a 'block'). And it's about 20 lessons spread out during the 3 weeks. A professor from my college is assigned as a mentor and is supposed to help you during the year with making the lessons and with any problems you have. At the end of the year they judge you, based of 2 observations during the 3 week internship at the end of the year. And they choose if you fail or if you pass.

If you pass, you can take your next internship next year (with more lessons, and a longer internship, think one day a week for a whole year but with two 3 week 'blocks' of longer internship). If you fail, you need to retry the internship next year with a different school, different class and a new mentor. If you fail for the second time, you are forbidden for re-applying the next year and need to quit with the study and do something else.

I failed my last internship, my mentor sucked, gave me a bad review and straight up lied to me about why I failed. So this year I had to retry, with a new mentor. In a couple of weeks my 3 week 'block' of internship starts and I need to start sending my lesson plans to my mentor and the teacher in the class where I do my internship. So far, everything is fine. I'm stressed because my dreams of becoming a teacher are based on one persons judgement, but everything else is fine.

Now, at this moment everything starts to fall apart. I needed to send my lesson plans to my mentor a couple of weeks ago. But they aren't finished. The deadline has passed and I still haven't worked on them. They are almost done, I just need to do some final touches. But for some reason I can't. I'm physically able to do it, I know how to do it. There is no reason for me to not do it. But I can't. For some reason I can't do it. Every time I even think about doing it, I get stressed out to the point of crying and I start to feel ill.

I know that they aren't going to be perfect. That I will need to change up some things. My mentor will give me feedback and when I change a couple of things I can give my lessons (this is a standard procedure, every lesson needs to be revised no matter how good). And this gives me so much anxiety. Knowing that they won't be good, knowing that I need to change some things. Knowing that my lessons aren't going to be perfect. But also knowing that if they aren't good enough my dreams of being a teacher are shattered and I will have no way of ever becoming a teacher. Knowing that my future is on the line. I freeze up, and I can't do my work.

This is even worse. Because if you are consistently late with turning in work, you also fail. And my work isn't done on time. I've received e-mails from my mentor, telling me I'm late with turning in my lesson plans. And this makes me even more stressed out. I know I could just e-mail her back with the reason why they aren't done. But at the end of the day, she will decide if I pass. So I don't want this to cloud her judgement and think that if I'm so stressed right now I won't be able to handle being a real teacher.

I mean I could go to the school psychologist, and book a free therapy session. I've tried to fill out the request form. But I couldn't. I've always had some excuse like 'I have exams soon, so I don't have the time' or 'it's not that bad, someone else has it worse I just need to suck it up'. I don't really know why. It's not like there is a taboo around therapy in my family. Both my sister and my mother have had therapy before or are in therapy at the moment. I just feel like I shouldn't, because I need to be strong. I need to show my little sisters that you can be strong and achieve anything you set your mind to.

I just feel stuck. And every minute that passes I feel worse. Because the problem is getting worse.