The pressures that educators at all levels are under have only continued to grow. From mounting pressures in the classroom to maintain high educational standards to mitigating growing behavioral issues possibly stemming from post-pandemic fatigue to increasing parental involvement, the stress added to teachers has become almost unbearable.
Add to those demands the impact of COVID-19 on professors, and there’s a hidden mental health issue among these educators. But what do those stressors mean for the future of education? First, a possible widespread exodus of teaching talent and experience may impact future students.
The Truth About Modern Education
Most people believe that education is a simple, objective task that is one-size-fits-all. But the idea that one-size-fits-all in education is wholly inaccurate. Some learners are auditory, meaning they learn by listening. Others are kinetic, meaning they learn by doing. Finally, some learners are visual, meaning they learn by seeing, and others still learn by combining these types.
As classroom size expands and resources become more complex, teachers approach the classroom to reach a maximum audience. Teaching as more lectures than interaction also means more passive learning. For disciplines such as STEM, that serves to be less beneficial as this type of coursework requires more hands-on discovery. This one-size-fits-all approach is doing a disservice for STEM-type and music courses.
Additionally, the detachment of remote learning brought about by the pandemic makes online learning challenging and less engaging. Combined with a disinterested student body that is being taught remotely, the issues of childcare and working from home leading to a work-life imbalance and the strains on personal relationships make instruction even less attractive than in years past.
Lower Rates of Job Satisfaction
The toll that the classroom demands have taken on instructors has a deleterious effect on job satisfaction. Dealing with these stresses has seen a surge in lower job satisfaction and interest for professors and post-secondary educators. In fact, a recent study found that more than 50% of all professors report considerations toward early retirement and career changes. Some additional findings in the study included:
- Stress: Over 69% of respondents felt an increased burden and anxiety since 2020 than any year prior.
- Anger: More than 35% of respondents claimed to be considered “angry” than in previous years to the tune of nearly three-fold.
- Burned-Out: 68% of respondents claimed to be experiencing chronic fatigue, up from 32% just a year prior.
- Depressed: Before 2020, over 40% of professors sampled claimed to be optimistic about the future, but since that number precipitously dropped to only 13%.
- Work-Life Balance: Before 2020, work-life balance saw a positivity rate of over 59%. Since 2020, the sample reports that over 54% of men and a whopping 74% of women respondents claim that work-life balance has deteriorated.
These factors have contributed significantly to the overall decrease in job satisfaction, and what’s more, the startling number was that over ⅓ of tenured instructors have planned to leave the profession. Additionally, stressed-out individuals tend to have lower self-defense mechanisms and lack the higher coping mechanisms that are customary to healthier individuals.
Problems such as depression, anxiety, rejection sensitivity, and others manifest themselves, further driving down career satisfaction and happiness. With these stresses and the impact of COVID on every aspect of society and life, it’s no wonder that job satisfaction has dropped and a departure from the profession may be quickly occurring.
The hidden stresses from the pandemic that have caused widespread disinterest and lower job satisfaction include:
- Uncertainty in the future of the pandemic
- Remote teaching being sterile and impersonal
- Occasionally technical glitches
- Dealing with disaffected students
- Work / life imbalance
The stress is due to multiple factors, from growing class sizes that impact the ability to teach a lesson plan; to the emotional strain of remote education and more. Mitigating the negative impacts of more and more disinterested students, as well as the occasional supervisor and parental intervention, has made instruction at the collegial level less inviting than it once was.
The personal impact on instructors ranges from an increase in anxiety and other stress disorders, a lack of work-life balance, and overall career satisfaction, which may lead to a pandemic of its own; the exodus of highly qualified instructors in the classroom.