Teachers and Stress

Teaching has been identified as one of the most stressful professions today. The reasons for that are quite similar to other stressful occupations in the world. In a survey assessing the stress levels of various jobs by the Health and Safety Executive, teaching came out top. The report, The Scale of Occupational Stress: further analysis of the impact of demographic factors and type of job, published in 2000, found that 41.5% of teachers reported themselves 'highly stressed', while 58.5% came into a 'low stress' category, while 36% of teachers felt the effects of stress all or most of the time .

Effects of Stress

Stress is considered as an involuntary response to a dangerous situation. When we face a situation which our brain is incapable of handling, it puts the body on alert by producing hormones which are required in fight or flight situation, which are:

ü Increased blood pressure.

ü Rapid heartbeat.

ü Reduced blood supply to the skin.

ü Cessation of digestive activities.

ü Increase perspiration.

ü Additional release of sugar and fast into the system to coup up with the additional energy requirement.

ü Decrease in immune system’s functions to preserve it for later action.

All these actions are a perfect requirement if we come across a physically stressful situation, like being attacked by a large predator, but most unbefitting in a classroom scenario.

All these actions which are mentioned above have a very long lasting negative effect if these stressful situations are to become frequently occurring feature. They may lead to the following serious and even fatal conditions:

ü Depression and anxiety.

ü Alcoholism.

ü Drug dependency.

ü Congenital heart diseases.

ü Stress related Diabetes.

Causes of Stress for Teachers

From the outside teaching seems all together a different job with summer vacations, winter vacations and spring breaks. But considering everything that a teacher has to go through everyday all these days off do not do much to get a teacher back in the right frame of mind. According to a research the major causes of teacher stress are:[i]

ü Excessive working hours

ü Excessive workload

ü Rising class sizes

ü Pressures due to OFSTED inspection

ü Changes in curriculum & courses

ü Changes to assessment & testing requirements

ü Poor management

ü Workplace bullying

ü Crumbling schools

ü Pupil misbehavior

ü Risk of violence from pupils, parents and intruders

ü Lack of support with bureaucracy, form filling and routine tasks

ü Lack of job security due to redundancy and fixed term contracts

ü Lack of control over the job

ü Burden of providing cover

ü Threat to early retirement arrangements

ü Denigration of profession by politicians & media

ü Lack of public esteem