As I start getting into my placement and getting to know the students throughout the school it is clear that all classrooms come with a wide range of backgrounds and abilities both academically and socially. The prevalence of exceptionalities is more prevalent now than ever while the support for teachers is only getting sparser. This got me thinking a lot, but at the root of it all I thought the importance of teachers mental health is more important now than ever.
It is no surprise that teaching is a rewarding job but in today's day in age, it can come with many stressors and challenges as well. You have a wide range of students from many backgrounds that vary academically, including children with learning disabilities, who are English language learners, come with different behavioral challenges, and the list goes on. With this comes the need for more one on one time to help those students succeed, the need to differentiate the curriculum and modify assessments. This can be a lot for one teacher to deal with on top of the other tasks teachers have at hand like planning, marking and making the time for your own life outside of the classroom. Teachers need to be able to deal with this added stress and extra work while maintaining their own mental health and well being. If teachers are not able to navigate these situations while maintaining their sanity, they will be unable to help students succeed and thrive.
There should be more workshops on mental health for teachers to give them the tools they need to help themselves and to help their students. Class sizes should be kept to a lower number in order for the teacher to be able to adequately tend to each student if we do not have the support required to run successful classes with such a diverse variety of student abilities.
My food for thought… what do you think?
No comments:
Post a Comment