The Causes of Stress as a High School Teacher Research

THE CAUSES OF STRESS AS A HIGH SCHOOL TEACHER
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Introduction
Teachers are considered great professionals in any society. This is due to their significant contribution to ultimate progress of society. This is why most researchers agree that the future and stability of a nation is directly proportional to the quality of teachers present. Education is defined as the process of imparting knowledge to individuals with an aim of developing positive attitude and character in them. Education is known to develop rationality in an individual, and any human mind does not achieve complete training without education. The purpose of preparing such individuals in the society is to prepare them for a meaningful future. Lambert, O’Donnell, Kusherman, & McCarthy (2006) describe teaching as one profession that is characterized with numerous challenges as a result of a changing external world. One of the most relevant challenges in the teaching profession is stress. Stress – in its most literal form – is usually defined as the process by which an individual’s physical, physiological, and psychological functions are compromised when the same individual reacts to events in their surroundings. In its wider form, stress comprises two aspects – emotional and physical. A review of a growing body of science literature describes stress as consisting of three distinct yet overlapping concepts (Research on Work-related Stress, 2000).
Craig (2000) describes the three concepts of stress as physical, physiological, and psychological. However, Craig notes that of the three recognized concepts, the psychological facet is the most important. The effects of the psychological facet in stress development points to the active and changing interaction between individuals and their occupations.Occupation is generally defined as the sum, total of all similar jobs contained in various work niches. Occupations play a major role in stress development in a person because they comprise all activities the person performs in that work environment, and which form the basis of stress development. It is now well known that exposure to occupational demands and challenges develop stress; the challenges and demands, in turn, lead to the development of various illnesses and health outcomes. The best representation of the above description is a model known as the Cooper model. This model illustrates the process of stress development, right from the sources to comprised personal health. The model describes a strong relationship between sources of stress and the implications on the health of the individual. Not only does stress cause a negative effect on an individual’s health, but it also compromises the workplace. Once the sources of stress manifest themselves, symptoms develop (Ingersoll & Smith, 2004). These symptoms lead to ineffective work discipline and schedule resulting in poor coordination, absenteeism from work places, and other serious and deleterious effects on a person. The paper aims at looking at the real causes of stress in high school teachers,potential effects, and possible measures to combat stress in such teaching environments. Finding solutions to the problem of stress in teachers is important in helping teachers improve their lives as well as those of their students. The process of finding the causes of stress and giving possible measures against stress will be carried out by taking detailed analyses of established authors. Such analyses will be from published scholarly journals.
Main Causes of Stress
In the current times, teaching is always one of the most stressful occupations or professions. The above description happens to be true, in any case, because of changing work environments in the teaching profession. Wynne (1991) describes teacher stress as a well-defined type of occupational stress. Wynne also notes that a teacher may develop unpleasant feelings such as those of emotional disturbance, anger, and frustration resulting from her/his teaching duties. Indeed, most surveys and studies carried out across all European regions – southern, northern, eastern, western, and central – point to unanimous agreement on the causative agents or factors of stress in high school teachers. Though, there are variations in the strength of each causative factor in overall stress development, each of the discussed factors was mentioned in every study across the globe. The above finding, then, points to a strong evidence that stress develops due to certain factors in the teaching practice.
In every study and survey, though, it was uniformly agreed that the stress issue should not be linked to an individual; rather, the problem ought to be linked to the work environments in which teachers operate. For example, how is the work environment designed to provide safety and comfort to teachers? What are the requirements and demands for every teacher in a specific school? Are the roles set out in a manner of simplification? Such are the concerns that need to be addressed in any teaching environment. If these challenges add up, they hinder the continuous development of quality teachers and even affect the overall performance in schools. The following are the causes of stress in high school teachers. It is important to note, however, that the listing is not based on the importance of the causative factor. The listing generally focuses on every factor that appears common to all study groups and surveys across the globe.
1 New teaching requirements and professional skills: this is one of the factors that result to the development of stress. We are in the 21st Century and technological skills continue to change with time. In this 21st Century, a lot of technological advances have led to the emergence of important curricula and courses that capture the concepts enshrined in technological advancement (Bailey & Pownell, 1998). T...