Teacher Corner 2: Teacher Stress - Causes and Impacts
We often hear and read that being a teacher is a fun and noble profession because teachers help students to succeed in their lives. In fact, I myself in the previous article (Teacher Corner 1) mentioned that a teacher is a representative of students' parents in the school environment. With the general public view of the figure of a teacher, it does not mean to be a teacher is free from various problems such as stress.
Just like any other profession, teachers will also deal with some pressure in their work as teachers. The pressure to become a teacher is known as "teacher stress". This pressure can be caused by several factors, both related to the teaching process and caused by the pressure of the student. Sadly, this has been a major source of problems in the teaching profession, even some of the studies I've read show that 1 in 4 teachers feel that they are often stressed. Wow, it is surprising me and I am a teacher !!!
Source of Teacher Stress
Furthermore, to discuss the teacher stress, it is necessary to identify some sources of teacher stress. One of them is caused by students who are less motivated in teaching. In this case the teacher must strive hard to motivate the students to cultivate their interest in learning. Motivating students is not easy for teachers or anyone; various teaching strategies and teaching methods are needed for this problem. Often, teachers will be depressed to apply certain methods to teach students with different backgrounds and different learning styles. And this is the main problem I face when I have to teach English to my students who tend to like Arabic and think my lesson is not more important. Imagine how stressed I am!!
Other sources of teacher stress are workload and teacher performance evaluation. This problem is often encountered when I discuss with other professional teachers. They assume that from time to time the workload of teachers is increasingly enhanced by the government so they have to do a lot to achieve that burden. Not to mention, technical evaluation of teachers is getting tougher, so they get depressed over time. Although, this provides positive reinforcement for teachers, it is undeniable in the process also provide negative reinforcement such as in which teachers will focus on achieving their performance for evaluation rather than focus on student achievement in learning.
The Impact of Teacher Stress on Teaching
Whatever the reasons and causes, experiencing prolonged stress is not a good thing for a teacher. In particular, teacher stress will have a negative effect on teaching, and will provide harms to teachers and students taught. At least, teacher stress has negative impacts on two matters relating to teaching. First, the teacher will feel dissatisfied with his profession as a teacher due to his disappointment to his teaching to students. This will result in the teacher not providing good teaching quality to the students.
The second, when teachers feel stressed will break communication with students in the classroom. So that teachers will be less appreciative of student performance and make students less motivated in learning. It will also encourage students to disrespect teachers and not pay attention to what teachers are taught. Furthermore, this will lead to subjective and selfish attitudes between teachers and students, and will result in hostility.
Conclusion
Stress is a condition that can be experienced by anyone, including teachers caused by various factors, both in the classroom and outside the classroom. But the underlining is that finding an effective solution for not experiencing stress is necessary especially for teachers. This needs to be done because if teachers can cope with stress effectively will be able to maintain the quality of their teaching and their communication with students.
@affiedalfayed
(a teacher and writer)
Well shared @affiedalfayed. It is clear that psychological pressure may be suffered by most teachers in classroom but their personaly may support them. Thanks for sharing
Thank for your thought.
Teaching takes so much patience and understanding. Thanks for speaking honestly about the realities of teaching and the challenges. It's important for teachers to know that they are not alone in the challenges.
Thank for reading my article. We hope that teachers could give positive impacts for students taught anyhow
El estres, incluso controlado,te conduce a una bajada de defensas que puede producirte una grave enfermedad.
@orgaescola Estoy de acuerdo con su punto. Teniendo en cuenta ese hecho, los profesores que sufren estrés deben encontrar un problema de estrategia efectivo para enfrentar ese problema, o se necesita el psicólogo para este caso.
Sorry my Spanish is bad, and I used google to translate this respond into Spanish
We are too often looked at having an easy job. Heck we get summer break lol. As teachers we are expected to enter the classroom smiling, happy. Sometimes even that can feeel like a stretch in our everyday lives....after all we are only human right!?!
Dont even get me started on formal observations . I still shake like a leaf each and every time.
You give the clear idea of it 👍🏼