"Success is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm."
-Winston Churchill

Being a teacher is hard work. It's exhausting physically, mentally, and emotionally.
It's tough because for the last three years I've been working towards being a teacher, and now, teacher training is basically my life. I think about school the minute I wake up to the minute I fall asleep, trying to think of how to help my students or how I would teach something in a perfect world.
It's tough because one of the things about being a teacher is that you learn from trial and error, which means a lot of failure, and yet you're still supposed to give consistently good lessons.
It's tough because I care so much about my students and I want to help them, but any weakness on my part is a disadvantage to them.
It's tough because I'm naturally very unassertive and not confrontational, and I have had to learn to be those things.
It's tough because I'm so tired all the time.
It's tough because I can see every area where I need to improve, but I want to be perfect now.

I don't like failure. But it's been something I've had to learn to embrace. Every time I mess up, every time I know I could do something better to help my students learn, it hurts, but I sincerely try to learn from it.

I love this quote from Churchill because it represents exactly the kind of attitude I am trying to develop. Life is not about not failing! Life is all about failing- and learning from those failures and becoming a better person for those failures and not ever giving up or despairing despite those failures- because try as we might we are human and humans make mistakes. I have lived my life trying to not make mistakes, and then getting sad and dejected because obviously that's not possible. So I'm turning over a new leaf. I am learning from my failures. I realize that this post is becoming very cliche and feel-good, but bear with me through one more quote (and a cliched quote at that).

"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work."
-Thomas Edison

Why is it so hard to look at failure from that point of view? I used to think that this way of thinking was just an easy way out, a way to make people feel better despite their failures and  weaknesses, but that's not true. What's true is that failure has such a negative connotation, when really, it's no crime to mess up. The true failure is giving up. But trying, and messing up, and trying again, and messing up again, and trying again over and over- that's not failing. Maybe it won't make you the most successful person in the world, but maybe that's not what matters. And maybe, this is all information that everyone else already knows, and I am just now finally realizing because of my changed circumstances.

I would also like to point out that despite the fact teaching is hard, it has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. But I think that always it's the things that take the most effort that are the most worthwhile.

I also am unsure of whether or not to post this. I hear a lot about potential employers Googling potential employees, checking Facebooks, blogs, etc. Is that true? And if so, by posting this when I bluntly state how difficult I find teaching to be, am I hurting  my chances in the future of getting a job? Also, the same applies for my grammar. Luckily I've never wanted to teach English, but having awful grammar probably won't look too good for a girl who wants to be a teacher.