Emotional Stress Among Teachers

Emotional Stress Among Teachers

By Misrah bt SulaimanAudrey Wee

Rani ArumugamPPISM (PJJ) TESL SEM 8

(4.1.1) CONCEPT OF STRESS

•a kind of disease which is always associated with mental health and often attack the present society.


•Stress means pressure which is very common in life (Harunssani, 2004 in Mohd Taib and Hamdan, 2006).


•According to Mohd Salleh (1994) stress is one‟s physical and mental response towards a situation that could cause discomfort in life. .


•- stress among teachers are what they experience on their negative emotions such as stress, frustration, anxiety, anger and depression due to their commitment as teachers. Teacher‟s workload and changes in the education system are among the factors that contribute to stress among teachers - Kyriacou (2000)

(4.1.2) TYPES OF STRESS

•According to Cockburn (1996), there are five types of stress amongst teachers, that is:


(A) ‘Here and Now’ Stress •- stress that occurs at that particular time. •E.G. during exam, when you are in an argument or when you have an accident.


•(B) ‘Anticipation’ Stress •- refers to a situation when a teacher reacts to an expected situation. •- e.g. when a novice teacher is assigned to be a class teacher and he has to meet the parents at the PTO meeting. As a novice teacher with no experience, this kind of situation could cause „anticipation‟ stress.


•(C) Imaginative Stress •- occurs when an individual imagines of a negative or frightful things. •E.g. alone in your house and you hear noises outside your house. Consequently you would imagine that a thief is trying to break into your house.


•(D) Reactive Stress •- occurs due to our past experiences and events. It happens naturally. •E.g. - when you experience the loss of your loved ones. The process of reminiscing the past could cause the reactive stress to occur


•(D) Negative Stress •- a feeling that could reach at its peak at certain duration; either days, weeks, months or years. It could be due to financial or marriage problems.

(4.1.3) CAUSES OF STRESS

•According to Faizah dan Mazlan (2010), the causes of life stress comprise of these eight factors


•(A) Life Style •a. Unhealthy eating discipline. •b. Loves to shop using credit cards for unnecessary things. •c. Unable to manage time for work and time spent for the family. •d. Lack in exercising for self-health. •e. Unable to manage systematic sleep pattern


•(B) Financial

•a. Having a bad financial discipline problem. •b. Do not plan before spending money. •c. Insufficient salary to accommodate with self and family expenses. •d. Bad financial planning. •e. Always having financial problems


•(C) Personality •a. Having difficulty to express the feeling of joy. •b. Having the attitude to talk more than listen to others. •c. Always in a hurry to complete the task given. •d. Always making decisions without thinking rationally. •e. Gets angry easily even on trivial things.

(3) CAUSES OF STRESS•(D) Spiritual. •a. Do not easily accept things that happen to oneself. •b. Easily blaming others. •c. Find difficulty to feel calm when faced with problems or obstacles. •d. Find difficulty to have relationship with others. •e. Lack of patience in dealing with difficulties.

(3) CAUSES OF STRESS•(E) Life Events

•a. Feeling useless -looks at self weaknesses rather than on their strengths. •b. One who has bad memories that keep haunting his life. •c. Feeling that God is not being fair. •d. Always feeling lonely. This situation would cause one to feel bored and stress. •e. Separation with the loved ones that could cause unhappiness and stress.


•(F) Environment

•a. Feeling suffocate because too many family members living in the same house. •b. Having problems with neighbours. •c. Uncomfortable and unfitting bedroom for rest. •d. Having a noisy family that could cause tangled mind. •e. A crowded and uncomfortable place to live in.


•(G) Relationship •a. Having problems to communicate with working colleagues. •b. Feeling that friends are unable to listen to the problems that one wants to share. •c. Having difficulty to feel happy with friends. •d. Feeling that your close acquaintance cannot understand you. •e. Feeling uncomfortable to mix around with the community.


•(H) Occupation •a. Likes to procrastinate work. •b. Having problems to control students while teaching. •c. Feels that the class time table given is burdening. •d. Having lack of recognition from the school. •e. Feels that the education policy is making lots of changes and too burdening.

(4.1.4) SIGNS OF STRESS

•(A) Psychological Characteristics :

-Easily worried, pressured, confused and angry. - A feeling of frustration, anger and hatred. - Emotionally sensitive and passive. -Keep things to oneself, self withdrawal and depression. - Lack of effective communication.


•(A) Psychological Characteristics :

-Do not like to socialize and like to seclude oneself from others. -Feel bored and does not experience any job satisfaction. -Mentally tired, a decline in intellectual function and lose of focus. -Loss of spontaneity and creativity. - Decreased self-esteem.


•(B) Behaviour Characteristics :

-Likes to procrastinate, avoid from doing any work and playing truant. - Decreased performance and productivity. -Increased use of alcohol, drug and banned substances. -Always shows the behaviour of sabotage in working. - Bad eating habits and weight gain.


•(B) Behaviour Characteristics :

-Abnormal eating behaviour as a form of self-withdrawal and a sudden weight loss; and a combination of depression.-Increased high risked behaviour, including getting careless in driving; and gambling.-Increased aggressive behaviour, vandalism and crime.- Declining quality of relationships with family and friends.- Suicide or attempted suicide.


•(C) Physical Signs Characteristics :

-Increased heart rate, blood pressure and tendency of suffering from cardiovascular disease.-Increased secretion of stress hormones (example, adrenaline and nonadrenaline)- May experience interference of gastrointestinal including irritable bowel syndrome, inflammation and ulceration of colon wall.


•(C) Physical Signs Characteristics :

-Increased injuries and accidents in the body.-Physical fatigue and likely to suffer from chronic fatigue syndrome.- Respiratory disorders.-Disorders of the skin- Headache, pain in the lower buttocks and muscle tension.- Failure in immune function, including high risk for cancer


-Introduction

•introduced by Freudenberger (Wood, 2000). •defined as a condition caused by depersonalization, fatigue and a declining achievement.•an emotional, physical and mentally fatigue due to extreme and prolonged stress.•will result in an individual becoming lost interest and motivation to continue to perform the duties and tasks of everyday life.

(4.2.1) BURNOUT AMONG TEACHERS

-Introduction

•introduced by Freudenberger (Wood, 2000). •defined as a condition caused by depersonalization, fatigue and a declining achievement.•an emotional, physical and mentally fatigue due to extreme and prolonged stress.•will result in an individual becoming lost interest and motivation to continue to perform the duties and tasks of everyday life.

(4.2.2) IMPLICATIONS OF BURNOUT

Burnout will cause an individual to become :- Temperamental- Cynical- Faint hearted- Feeling useless- Feeling helpless- Lack of productivity.

(4.2.3) SIGNS OF BURNOUT

Burnout will cause an individual to become :- Temperamental- Cynical- Faint hearted- Feeling useless- Feeling helpless- Lack of productivity.


(A) Physical signs :

- feeling tired all the time, low immunity, changes in sleeping and eating time, headache, backache and muscle ache.


(B) Behaviour signs– pull out of responsibilities, isolate themselves from others, defer the task given and take a long time to complete the task, using drugs or alcohol to solve problems, transfer frustration to others, ignoring work and coming to work late but going back from work early.

(4.2.3) CAUSES OF BURNOUT

-feels not appreciated -experiencing stress at a long term

-requirements exceeds the capabilities of teachers,example: pressure to meet the target of exam is very high whereas the numbers of teachers are small.

(4.2.3) CAUSES OF BURNOUT

-lack of mentoring culture – new teachers usually will need guidance from the senior teachers. But poor guiding culture in schools because each teacher is burdened with various clerical work.

-no recognition and awards given, unclear job expectation, unsystematic working environment .

(4.2.4) DIFFERENCES STRESS BURNOUT

Excessive involvement in activities

Refuse to get involved

Would cause anxiety and hyperactive

Produce disability and despair

Lose energy Decline one‟s motivation and hope

Resulting anxiety Cause isolation and depression

Physical injury Hurt feelings

Would cause an early death May feel like life is meaningless

(4.2.5) WAYS TO OVERCOME BURNOUT

Professional development in stress management should be implemented. Among the activities that can be implemented are:

•time management workshop •stress management workshop •financial management workshop •nutrition and recreational training •increased levels of self-endurance •create a culture of mutual understanding •create a conducive working environment •enhance teacher‟s emotional intelligence •celebrate festivals of the different races

(4.3.1) STEPS FOR EMOTIONAL STRESS MANAGEMENT

(A)Effective time management(B) Avoid drugs and alcohol (C) Reduce interference (D) Do meditation (E) Positive thinking and learn to control fear(F) Get advice(G) Learn to say ‘NO’ (H) Get enough sleep (I) Do exercise or work out

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THANK YOU FOR YOUR UNDIVIDED ATTENTION

Emotional Stress Among Teachers

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