Stress
As a paralegal instructor, it is important that I teach my students about stress and stress management. I will not paint an unrealistic picture of the world for them - the legal world is often very stressful, with deadlines, commitments, and fears of making mistakes.
That being said, I will always follow up with the simple truth that each one of my students is more than capable of dealing with all of these things. I like to tell them that they are the best of the best simply because they chose to be here - and that is what sets them apart.
I think teaching about stress is in order. Students need to know that their careers can be stressful but think of the outcome of helping someone else
Stress is a big factor in everyone of our lives, and learning how to deal with it has to be taught,
or others can help.
It is a much better benefit if you can teach a student how to deal with stress through real life answers to those stresses.
I do believe dealing with stress can be taught. Unfortunately the best teacher is the stressful situations we have been in ourselves. The worst thing to feel when you are under a lot of stress is alone.... Until our students learn how to handle stressful situations on their own, I think it is important for instructors to let them know they are there to provide any assistance they possibly can. Whether that means extra tutoring sessions, or just being a listening ear.
Kimberly, I agree that teaching about stress is in order. The big question is how to do it. Any best practices to share?
Good points, Kevin. Expanding on that, it's important to re-enforce that availability of the many resources that are available to them.
Paul, I hope you also share the rewards of persevering and overcoming the deadlines and fears.
Paul, I hope you also share the rewards of persevering and overcoming the deadlines and fears.
Alot of the students do not know how difficult it is to enroll in school and try and jugle a family and maybe even working. I think that this kind of stress should be brought to the students before they enroll and take this step.
So many times during my teaching experiences, I have had to deal with the stress level of my students. Acknowleding that daily stress exsist seems to work. I like to mention that we never know the stress of the person sitting next to us. All I know is that they made it to class. All I know is that school is important to them and that it is my job to stay focused and stay to task. School should not be a place where we try and solve there problems ot even to talk about them if we are not qualified. We can referr our students to people who can help and keep our students focused on changing their lives and futurs which is why they are sitting ion our classrooms.
Lisa, I agree that only qualified counselors should get involved with clinical type issues, but we all can engage and encourage students as they struggle with the problems of everyday life. It is important to know when and how to refer the larger problems to trained support personnel.
Loren Kroh
