21st Century Teachers Mental Health – Why It Matters And How To Improve It

Abstract

Teaching is one of what researchers call “at risk professions” – where individuals are prone to stress and burnout which affects their mental health. Today, the role of teachers is expanding to include more duties and responsibilities than ever before, including building emotionally strong and healthy students.

However, society often neglects to address or even discuss the mental and emotional well-being of teachers themselves. This neglect has led to two major issues – teacher burn-out and a lack of skilled teachers available as a result. Teachers feeling overworked and exhausted because of new initiatives without proper training or professional development.

Teaching is normally characterized by long working hours, a lack of job security, and constant complaint of low wages and demands of the parents, management and students. Some of the common reasons that affect a teacher are, student indifference, discipline problems in classrooms, overcrowded classrooms, excessive administrative tasks and excessive testing and correction work. Additionally teachers burn out when they feel they are no longer educating and inspiring students.

Thus, three main reasons for a teacher to feel stressed and burst out are when,

• a teacher lacks recognition


• a teacher is overworked


• a teacher does not see the possibility of a change or improvement.

Research shows that the Mental Health of Teachers is affected and greater when people workers are young and lower for older staff. A younger staff usually has less experience than the older ones (Maslach 2003)

Research findings also indicate that the demands of being a professional educator in the 21st century is stressful.  The 21st century expects teachers to be critical thinkers who have good problem solving skills.  The teacher is expected to collaborate and have good leadership skills.  The teacher is expected to have good communication skills, and also good analytical skills.  More than one third of the teachers leave the field within the first five years according to Educationworld.com

One in 20 teachers have 'mental health problem lasting more than a year'

Studies have shown that around 5% of teachers today are suffering long-lasting mental health problems, up from just 1% in the 1990s, and there has been a similar increase in prescribed antidepressant medication.