Content area
Abstract
Today’s classroom is becoming more and more stressful to teachers due to increasing classroom diversity, nonteaching responsibilities, and dealing with the symptoms of a pandemic in 2020, These add even more challenges to the already stressed schoolteacher. Many times, public school teachers and instructors are the unrecognized heroes of our nation. Daily they gird themselves for one of the most volatile environments in our current era: the modern school classroom. In this arena, the teacher must maintain discipline and control while attempting to effectively educate students of all races, ethnicities, and educational preparation levels. Teachers who can recognize their personal locus of control—their belief about the controllability over one’s life—can successfully learn to deal with their stress and reduce individual burnout. These teachers are vital to the health of our schools and help prevent school failure. This readiness to manage stress includes knowledge of the curriculum, knowledge of the students, and knowledge of themselves adding to the teacher’s personal toolkit of teaching skills. With these tools in place, the teacher can be better prepared to meet the challenges of the modern classroom. Additional challenges include large classes, angry parents, special needs students, troubled and at-risk students, and poor facilities. Even the most prepared teacher can be affected by these challenging issues. With all these things facing the teacher, it is no wonder many begin to feel stress to the point of burnout.
