Teacher Stress Studies Support the Educator's Health
It is not always that students get stressed because of teacher; they; the teachers, themselves are, much of the time in stress. Teacher stress studies have shown that stress is a real phenomenon and there have been difference of opinions regarding the question of tackling it. According to an international research conducted on teacher stress, it was found that all the stress levels are somehow associated with basic teaching stress, individual stress and some more.
*** Statistical data of teacher stress studies:
Nowadays, the profession of teaching get stress along with it. So, from the past few years, the profession of teaching has become a stressful job. In May 2000, the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) has had a survey related with teacher stress studies.
- According to their report, almost 40% teachers have visited their doctor to discuss a stress problem in the last year.
- 25% teachers suffered from serious stress factored health problem like high blood pressure, depression, gastrointestinal disorder etc.
- 20% said that they had enough drinking to remove stress while
- 15% considered that they were alcoholics.
*** Teacher stress studies reveal the impact of stress:
Teacher stress studies have shown that teacher stress greatly impact teacher's possession. One example is a study conducted for the Times Educational Supplement (1997). The study tells us that almost 19% of primary vacancies and almost 37% of secondary were mainly because of ill-health caused by stress. So, in short, recruitment is badly affected by stress.
Earlier, teacher stress was merely a personal agenda, but nowadays, it is much becoming as an institutional and political agenda. All this become much more like a political issue when Jan Howell, in 2000, got victory on Newport County Borough Council for not responding to her stress during academic sessions. She was also given a reward of $250,000. As this has become a political issue, so now we have two parties in it. One is the union that takes stress as an institutional or political agenda and the other one is the employers and they take it as a personal issue.
There is no doubt, many factors in teacher stress. Generally, we can divide these factors into three categories:
1- Factors basically related to teaching.
2- Factors that address the individual weakness of the teacher
3- Factors that operate at institutional level or political level.
Teacher stress studies also highlight that one common stress factor for teachers is the overall discipline of the class. Maintaining it properly is a stressful activity. Most of the teachers are also worried about how to manage their class. Classroom management requires lots of hard work and commitment.
CONCLUSIONS
Teacher stress studies are, no doubt, a real support in relating teacher stress problems with different areas of problem like recruitment, health, individual, systemic factors etc. However, we still have lot to learn about teacher stress, especially about the interference of teachers. Not much research has been done to eliminate teacher stress. We don't have effective programs that can help teachers in reducing their stress. Yet we have some stress management programs but still they won't come handy in case of teacher stress.
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