In answer to your question, Yes. They are all factors of stress in my life, two children, owning a buisiness, working fourteen hours a day, unrealistic expectations from management at times, and being sucessful at ignoring my wife. Only thing not affecting stress is my commute.
I tend to internalize things that are stressing me at school. Talking out the "issues" of my day with a friend or co-worker away from the school helps analyze what it is that is stressing me out. Many times, the things at work that are stressing me out are things beyond my control! Many times, you have to sort of look "beyond" the thing that is stressing you out and realize it's not that big a deal.
Indeed! Taking a step back to see the larger picture is often key to putting stressors into perspective. And often times, others can help us see the big picture.
High stress comes when I have a 6 hour evening class that ends at 11:00 p.m. and have to be at my job by 7:00 a.m. and both are an hours commute from home.
Primarily, time is my greatest stressor. Allotted one hour paid time for prep each day; is inadequate. I constantly work (off the clock) to prepare for class and/or grade students work. This creates resentment toward my employer, because they know the amount of work required yet refuse to allow the instructors to be on the clock. In addition, administration requires instructor participation during events and refuses to pay us for the time. Many of us resent and are feeling taken advantage of, creating job burn out.
I love my students and the knowledge of making a difference in their lives is a great benefit. But because of these demands, it is easy to become overly stressed and loose the focus on the students.
Students are what often keep me going too. So much of this work is about the satisfaction knowing that you are making a difference in their lives. When you have this kind of outlook, you never really clock in or clock out.
NEVER HAVE ENOUGH TIME TO TEACH STUDENT
My teaching schedule was a major source of stress. I had to work nights. I was divorced with an eight year old to take care of and I had no family in the state that I was teaching. This encompassed most of my stress source as it was part of the school standards because the school administration required that I work nights to keep my teaching job. In addition, the difficult teaching environment was caused by the school not having the proper qualified employees to install equipment and software for my classes. Last but definitely not least was conflict cause by students not coming to class, not handing in work or taking tests on time.
Wow Nanci, these are all major sources of stress. What did you do to overcome them?
To help relieve some of the stress I would pray a lot, tried to get some exercise and I looked for employment elsewhere. I got a baby sitter for the nights that I had to work. For the work environment, I would send emails to the dean stating I would install the equipment and software for the classes when the school received these. Basically, I had to take on more responsibility to get the job done. Concerning the students, I had to develop a system to try to get the students to participate and verify the student’s lack of participation. Again more work for me. I developed post cards to be sent out to the absent students, in addition to the call log sheets that were in place. Then I developed the student activities sheets that I discussed in the prior forum.
I have found that a large part of the stress in my life is the 4 hour commute everyday. It is hard to be at the school to meet all of the needs of my students. I live by email and blackboards.
My greatest worry is that I will not be there in time for a students needs.
Wow, that is a very long commute Beth. I wonder if there is a way for you to start teaching online courses a few days a week to balance things out.
I am a classic example of someone with too much on her plate.
*I teach in 2 programs, meaning that I have to walk to another campus each day while my desk and computer are at another location.
*I have a family outside of work complete with a husband that is equally busy.
*On my off hours and weekends I work with an associate which takes up much of my extra time. *Finally, I am also the president of our local professional organization which makes the entire mix somewhat crazy!
Balancing all of this is tricky and I can guarantee that it is also stressfull.
Sandra,
Sounds as though you are working in the right direction by attending to your needs, which in turn allows you to be 100% for those that need you. This is something that need to work on, for Sure! Thanks for the reminder...
The juggling act between day to day instruction combined with mentoring students combined with extra assignments can be challenging. However I truly enjoy my work and when I feel overloaded I take a deep breath and think about a very important fact.
I LOVE what I do for a living; unless I would become super wealthy( no guarantees of happiness there!)I can't imagine living my life any other way.
Yesterday I left work with an urgent toothache, went to another Doctor's appointment went home, got showered and changed and went back out to a meeting at our school. I had left home at 5:30 a.m. and didn't return for the day until 9 p.m.
As I said goodnight to my adult son; I said wonder what I'd do if I didn't love what I do?
Wow Maureen,
Kudo's to you! I think that loving what you do helps!
ACS
You make a good point Maureen. Many of us are in this business because we love what we do. And when you love what you do, it isn't work.
Wow Andrea. You really do have a lot on your plate. But interestingly, juggling so many things will likely only make you better at time management, because you will have to learn to balance all of it.
I have had students that constantly have outside complications that they bring into the classroom and spreading the stress around. The thing that i have tried to do is to help these students before it spreads. This definately can cause some unwanted stress for me, i just have to make it as short lived as possible.
I agree, it is important to give an ear to students but a big mistake to allow too much negativity into the classroom, especially when it affects the learning environment.
