When a teacher has to work with as many as a hundred or more students a day, each with their own personalities, desires, and problems, stress will always rear its ugly head. This stress will be further exacerbated when those hundred or more students are teenagers. Teenagers are the most self-centered of all individuals.
There are many difficult issues that come up every day with teen students that cause additional stress. They include:
• Motivation to learn. Often, students are required to do subjects that do not interest them or do not see the relevance to them in life. Mathematics is one of those subjects when algebra comes on the scene.
• Truancy. This is especially true in the case of children. When they return to class, the teacher should take the time to provide additional instruction in an effort to help them catch up with the rest of the class.
• Last period. Here two problems arise. The first is tiredness. Teachers should plan an active lesson to keep students’ minds on their learning. The second is the thought among students that school is almost over and they start to tune out.
• Behavior problems. There are all kinds of reasons for this. It affects a teacher’s concentration while delivering a lesson and disrupts the ability of other students to absorb the lesson well.
• Post lunch time. For children in particular, lunchtime is a time to enjoy sporting activities. They will arrive to class hot, sweaty and tired and often late, which means that the teacher’s planning for the lesson is often compromised.
• Hot summer afternoon. These afternoons often have a sleepy effect on students, making it difficult for them to concentrate effectively.
• Late arrivals. They interfere with the continuity of the lesson and often require more time for the teacher to learn what has already been taught.
• Tiredness of the students. In high school, this often stems from two factors. The first is related to after school work where some students work long hours often into the night. The second relates to the assigned work. Many students have poor planning and organization skills, leaving many important tasks to the last minute, forcing them to work until the wee hours of the morning to complete the task.
• Poor diet and physical condition. A fit and well-nourished student concentrates more effectively and absorbs learning at a faster rate than others.
• Last week of the quarter. Students quickly enter vacation mode even though a new job is being taught.
• Week after the exam. This week is important for the teacher to allow you to show students how they can improve their results when exams are reviewed. But, for many students, the tests are over and they are no longer interested in what they did, only their results and whether or not they can get more grades from the teacher. Some students are very aggressive in doing this.
There are other issues that increase stress for high school teachers. They include:
• Large hands-on classes where safety is an issue (for example, craft classes) and where a lack of equipment means students must share equipment. Students get angry because teachers can never guarantee equal access to computers. The time wasted trying to do that affects teaching time and the teacher’s ability to cover the learning assigned for the teaching period.
• Get a class after they’ve gone haywire in the previous lesson. It takes time and patience to calm the class down before effective teaching can begin. The previous class may have been with a substitute teacher or a subject that students are forced to take, often in high school.
• Teach subjects for which you are not qualified.
• Inner relief. Secondary teachers are given time for preparation and correction. Some masters have more than the specified minimum. This extra time is used for internal relief and the teacher does not know when it will be used in a week. Internal relief often comes when the teacher has planned to do something urgent and/or important.
• Noisy classes next to your room at crucial times of teaching or assessment.
• The role of “in loco parentis”. In today’s world, performing this role, while part of the official role of a teacher within school hours, requires very careful consideration and a record of how, when, and why the teacher assumed that role.
• Prepare students for external “exams”.
• University entrance requirements. This often requires students to select subjects that are difficult for them or of little or no interest, making motivation a factor in their personality in the classroom.
• Parents. Many are more demanding and protective of their adolescent children, often siding with them against the teacher and the school. They forget that, as teenagers, they never told their parents the whole story. Then, when they confront the teacher at a parent-teacher conference, they are often embarrassed when they hear all the details. Of course, there are parents who believe that their child cannot do anything wrong because they are “angels” at home.
This is a huge list of issues that affect the work day of a high school teacher. The list is by no means exhaustive. But what is true of any teacher’s life is that her day in the classroom is never routine. Therefore, stress is something that is always present and it is important that the general public understand how stressful this career is. Teachers may have longer vacations than the average person, but these vacations are initially filled with days needed to relieve the teacher of that stress and help them return to some semblance of normality so that the vacation period can be enjoyed with the family.