Is Your Job Killing You?

I’ve heard that the two most stressful professions are firefighter and school teacher. I actually heard this many years ago when public schools had more freedom. Today’s teacher has stress coming from many different directions.

One source of teacher stress is the government. Education is a huge part of the budget. The legislature keeps creating new laws that leave teachers and principals with goals that are impossible to achieve and money for schools hinged on those goals. Students will have less money for services that they need such as special education classes, English Language Learner teachers to help them transition to a new language, gifted services, fine arts, physical education and materials for the classroom. This is creating a group of students who are not doing as well as their predecessors who had the advantages of these services and materials. The media (yes, they are controlled by the government) then transmits a one-sided view to the populace. We see lots of stories about the teacher accused of abusing children in some way or another, (which these days can just mean saying something that someone doesn’t like) but we don’t see very many stories of the teacher who stayed after school during uncontracted, unpaid hours speaking to parent about their child or helping a child learn a new concept in math. Speaking of teachers, of course, there are some bad apples in the bunch, aren’t there people in every profession who don’t live up to expectations? What many people are missing, however, is that the vast majority of teachers do what they do for an unlivable wage because they love children and want to make a difference in their lives.

This leads to the next source of stress for teachers is that parents are believing all of the hype about “bad teachers” and so now when a child is struggling academically or behaviorally, the belief is that it must be the teacher’s fault. “My child misbehaves in your class because she’s bored” (i.e. if you were a better teacher, my child would behave). “I don’t know why my child is getting bad grades. He knows all this stuff when I help him with his homework” (i.e. You must not know what you’re doing). “When I asked my daughter why she got this behavior note sent home, she said the teacher was just being mean” (i.e. so now the child is in control of the adults - the child who did get in trouble for misbehaving, no less!) A few short years ago, the relationship between parents and children looked and sounded very different. It used to be that grown-ups were all on the same page about helping children become their best selves and knowing that the burden is on the child to work hard and do well. The benefits that come from having perseverance, respect for others and being able to accomplish your goals was what was prized. Part of the journey between childhood and adulthood was knowing that there are roadblocks along the way and teachers and parents are there to help you navigate through them.

Unfortunately, this “war on public schools” has come at a time in history when the paradigm for teachers is already changing. Seventy-two percent of children age 8 and under have used a mobile device for some type of media activity such as playing games, watching videos, or using apps, up from 38% in 2011. In fact, today, 38% of children under 2 have used a mobile device for media (Common Sense Media, 2013). The average child has around seven hours of screen time a day despite American Academy of Pediatrics recommendations to limit screen time to just one or two hours a day for older kids and no screen time at all is recommended for infants and children under two. The other disturbing fact about children and technology is that parents tend to just leave kids alone with a tablet or phone. Social interaction with other human beings is what help little brains develop. Every minute left alone, especially during early childhood, is a minute lost from activating the brain to maintain or form synaptic connections. There was a time when the point of taking your family out to a restaurant was to enjoy a special time with your family and children could learn social norms of politeness and how to behave in public. Children are not learning these valuable skills anymore because they are given a smartphone to play with and left out of conversations. I have also witness parent who clearly thought that if their child was playing with technology, the child could not hear their very adult and inappropriate for kids conversation they were having. So not only are these parents not teaching their child manners, they are teaching them improper words and unsuitable behavior.

So, how does this increase teacher stress? Kids are coming into class with lower social skills than ever before. Many schools have some sort of citizenship program but with very little connection to their home life, the kids have difficulty internalizing many of the morals taught in school. This leads to vast repetition of rules, procedures and values for the teacher and to sometimes very serious and chronic behavior problems for students. Children’s dwindling social skills are effecting their ability to get along with each other at a time when 21st century skills such as collaboration are going to be the so valuable to them. This in turn effects their academics because if they spend the whole period fighting with each other instead of doing the assignment, important learning and skills have been missed. Because of the quick pace and quick reward system of many video games many children have less patience with themselves and may not realize that learning may take time and lots of practice before mastery. Most detrimental of all is that kids are spending more time sitting around instead of outside running around and playing with other kids. Kids and especially young kids, still have this pent up energy inside of them when they get to school because there has not been an outlet at home. It is very hard to teach when your audience is unfocused and wiggly.

Please understand that teachers love children and love to teach, that’s why they got into the profession in the first place. These new demands, impossible goals and lack of community support are what will drive the good teachers out of the profession because there is only so much stress the human body can handle before it takes its toll.