A square peg in a round hole.

My fear is that the hopes that I have for my practice, and the beliefs I have come to hold regarding how I would like to teach will be worn down by the myriad realities and pressures I am likely to experience as a beginning teacher. In many ways I suspect that the teaching tools with which I have been equipped by my pre-service training, based largely on constructivist principles, may ill-prepare me for the real world of secondary school mathematics teaching. Indeed, at times I feel like I have been armed with a square peg and am about to be faced with a round hole; and I wonder how long I will keep trying to make them fit.