Mental health issues have soared these past two years and teachers are unfortunately one of the undermined groups that bear the brunt. Ungraded work slowly piles up and continues to be pushed aside. The ability to complete a small task is inhibited greatly, as both their school lives and their personal lives are difficult to balance. ‘Grade this, you need to plan that’ the gnawing of constant reminders is a challenge to avoid. Planning, teaching, grading, over and over again. Welcome to the world of an overworked teacher.
Students, parents, the school board overlook teachers; awareness being spread about their overall well-being is obsolete. Generic advice on how to deal with stress being given from those who have it all together hardly helps students, let alone teachers. ‘This is what you signed up for, teaching should be your main priority’ words that often leave teachers left with little to no means to help themselves. They’re not just adults whose only purpose is to teach and grade; they’re people with thoughts and feelings.
There are limited mental health resources offered to teachers. Since they are adults they are expected to deal with the struggles that come their way. Although this isn’t the case, studies show that only 36% of educators receive the resources to manage their stress. Further proving that many teachers who are left to deal with their issues on their own and don’t receive the help they need. What matters the most is that teachers are receiving resources for mental health care but the quality of care needs to essentially be superb, or at the very least satisfactory.
Resignation from teaching positions is becoming more prevalent than ever, and this can be directly attributed to the amounts of stress that teachers are left to carry alone. Statistics indicate that there is an increase in teachers who wish to resign because of the pandemic. One in four teachers considered quitting, an alarming statistic that people don’t talk about. No one seems to be asking why this is. One example, could be directly tied to the repercussions from the pandemic that led teachers to truly doubt whether or not there was an element of worth or any personal gain in continuing to teach in conditions that left them feeling mentally defeated. Additionally, teachers tend to find themselves in a debacle when trying to manage their home lives as well as their school lives. Many teachers have families and relationships that require a lot of dedication and effort in order to keep everything maintained.

Teachers find themselves role-playing as certain jobs they might not be prepared to do. Such as, breaking up a fight between two students, helping out troubled kids with tough personal lives, taking on other’s problems as their own and overall taking on too many responsibilities. While considering these factors, it should be evident that teachers would get aid from the school districts for their extra efforts but that isn’t the case majority of the time. 42% of teachers say that administrators don’t help them when it comes to relieving stress.
Teachers’ pay is too low; it’s no secret that teachers make minimal salaries, which is uncanny because they take responsibility for carrying the futures of students. Devoting the majority of their time to ensure that they’re leading students to success. Educators deserve to be paid more, $15 to $23 an hour is not enough considering the amount of effort teaching takes and the responsibilities brought upon them. It has been proven that working for a minimal amount of money for a job that takes up too much time leads to the rise of severity of mental health issues.
Teachers are practically essential, they work all day during the week and may even take time out of their weekend to catch up with grading and planning. A higher salary would evoke motivation and drive to be the best they can be for their students.
Taking the time to recover and replenish is proven to be very beneficial, so It is crucial that these types of breaks are encouraged. Yet, mental health breaks are often frowned upon. Much like students, teachers are held to the standard of good attendance. The habit of overworking isn’t uncommon, and teachers fall victim to it, so there is no use in shaming. Taking the time to recharge to avoid being mentally drained in the classroom shouldn’t be deemed as laziness. It has been proven to be effective, having to commit to hours of hard work plus dealing with grading and planning at home is too much for one person to handle. Mental health breaks would guarantee that teachers are able to take all of their tasks one step at a time.
As students, we could do our best to remind teachers that they are anything but alone. Send friendly reminders to teachers that they are doing great and are deserving of compassion and encouragement. Educators deserve so much more recognition than they receive and it is time to take a stand and advocate for the people who are relied on the most. Collectively pushing for more resources to be offered to teachers who find stress management to be difficult would overall benefit the classroom environment.