Teachers workload causes attempt to suicide

The amount of workload that teachers are dealing with is taking its toll. According to Sue McMahon  , a meteoric rise in work related stress has been a cause of attempted suicide. Many teachers are struggling with their working hours, some of them are making 50 hours a week. The funny thing is that it is not even teaching that is causing them stress it is the work that they do outside of teaching. The most time taking activity that teachers do is filling in forms, it is the bureaucratic procedures that is too much for the highly stressed teachers.

Depending on where you teach the workload in combination with teaching can be excessively stressful. I have worked at Varias College in Schilderswijk The Hague and you can trust me when I say that it was not easy. Some pupils are very demanding and they want constant attention and some need special care. So what do we teachers do, is it really the form filling that makes us stressed or is the way pupils are? I think that we are no longer teachers anymore we are also a bit of a parent in class. Sit straight, get your books, bags of the table, we are constantly correcting them and we are less busy with teaching. And in my opinion that is a shame. Fortunately, I have never wanted to kill myself and I hope that it will not go that far.


Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/apr/25/stress-drives-teachers-out-of-schools