Stress is a word often used by us high schoolers when asked how we’re doing. That’s often a fair assessment because, well, we have a lot going on.

We are students, athletes, artists, musicians with families, friends, and the constant urge to watch Tik Tok. There’s so much on our plate, and we often forget that the adults around us are stressed, too. Everyday, we students encounter multiple teachers.

Teachers are usually thought of as the people who tell us to do things we don’t want to do all day. That can be true, as we don’t often wake up in the mornings looking forward to writing essays and doing algebra, but even teachers have stress like us.

It’s important to understand the stress that a teacher carries with them every day when you go into their class.

Mrs. Binion was willing to sit down and talk about the stress put on teachers and how Covid affected it.

She described the stress she faces every day as a teacher and what causes it.

“I think the majority of stress I feel as a teacher is the desire to do well by kids, and feeling their needs are so important, and feeling like sometimes there’s not enough hours in the day to do everything that I think needs to be done to be the best teacher I can be to make sure they are getting the best education they can get,” said Binion.

It’s interesting to hear Binion talk about where her stress comes from. Her first thought wasn’t a large stack of papers or misbehaving students, but rather the worry of not “doing well by kids.” She and other teachers truly care about students.

Binion has been teaching for years, and her stress has changed over time.

“Oh, it was a different kind of stress at the beginning of my career… I didn’t have good classroom management skills. I didn’t know how to plan ahead. I didn’t organize myself. And so at the beginning of my career it was like maybe I’m not good enough to do this job. Maybe I can’t handle it,” she explained.

With new things popping up every day in a student’s life, it’s easy to feel self doubt. Teachers can also feel this, and it’s important to understand that even our mentors doubt themselves at times.
In Binion’s case, she has become much more comfortable.

“Now I think it’s less stressful because I think I enjoy it more because every day I feel a bit more confident and I enjoy the students more [because of it].”

Covid affected everyone in a big way, and Binion detailed how Covid affected her stress as a teacher.

“I didn’t realize how much not seeing kids’ faces was adding to my level of stress. But when masks came off, and I got to see kids’ whole faces, I was able to find a bit more joy in the daily experience because there’s so much you get from the nonverbal communication.”

The simple thought of Covid and all of the underlying stress it caused was not only projected onto students but also teachers in their everyday practices.

Finally, Mrs. Binion added, “I don’t want to sound like [teachers] are complaining because I do think this is the best job in the world… Hopefully if we’re doing our jobs well, we don’t make it look stressful. And so I think sometimes that can lead to the perception that it’s an easy job, when it’s not. It’s fun, but it can be fun and stressful at the same time.”

Teachers do a good job making it seem like they aren’t stressed, but they often are. It’s very important as a student to understand how hard teachers work in the midst of stress. Even when they have papers to grade and personal lives, they show up wanting the best for us.