These factors may be compounded by student attendance, classroom attention, disciplinary problems, and lack of student motivation.  Lack of student motivation can be especially stressful to a teacher because uninterested students disrupt a classroom and the work of other students. Moreover, teaching uninterested or unmotivated students can be exhausting and damaging to a teacher’s positive sense of self.

Increased Work Loads, Less Student Contact

Demands on teachers are increasing—more work, more students and less time (Easthope & Easthope, 2000). In a research study comprising college psychology and sociology faculty and private secondary school eleventh and twelfth grade teaching faculty, using focus groups and in-depth interviews, findings revealed an increasing intensification of teachers’ work. The increased demands of workloads outside the classroom, and on time and energy, result in teachers having less time for preparation, teaching and interaction with students. All of these demands can contribute to the stress levels of teachers (Easthope and Easthope, 2000).

These researchers further report that teachers feel the need to maintain actions congruent with their professional ideology while at the same time accommodate the multiple demands associated with teaching.  As a result of these increasing demands on time, it is reported that the quality of care for students is one of the first things which overworked teachers decrease, leading to tremendous hidden and long-term impacts on the college climate in addition to effects on the attitudes, self-esteem and motivation of both faculty and students.  This can especially be the case when teachers are too pressured to carry out many of the caring activities they perceive as part of their professional identity.

The incongruency between amount of time and caring becomes an exhausting conflict for many teachers and heightens the complexity of teaching. The Easthope study reported many ways in which teachers attempted to deal with the situation.  Some teachers adapted to the changes imposed upon them; many teachers accepted what they considered to be chronic and persistent overload as a normal part of their lives; some indicated they attempted to do “planning on the run or decision-making on the run”; some adapted to the increased workload by reducing their commitment to professional teaching through reducing their input into the teaching task; others adapted by opting to work part-time.  One faculty member reported:

I just look at it now and…, I don’t do as good a job now as I did three years ago, four years ago, because there is just not the time.  If you have a 25% increase in workload something has got to give and basically it’s preparation and it’s marking...There will be less of that time for everything. (p.16)

The study found that as teachers strived to satisfy all the needs of students and requirements of the administration, there was a reduction in service to students, and this generated the most stress and guilt. Teachers saw this as a grave loss, both to themselves and to their students.

A Change in Faculty Time Allocation

Another study supports the assertion of less faculty contact time with students but also examines the amount of time allocated to teaching and preparing for teaching (Milem, Berger and Dey, 2000).  Faculty at doctoral, comprehensive, liberal arts and two-year institutions reported statistically significant increases in time spent teaching and preparing for teaching.  However, faculty at research universities reported a statistically nonsignificant drop in time spent teaching. Faculty at two-year colleges reported spending the most time teaching and preparing for teaching, followed by liberal arts colleges, comprehensive universities, doctoral universities and research universities.  The greatest proportional increase in teaching time occurred at liberal arts colleges. 

Milem, Berger and Dey then began to look at what these teachers were sacrificing.  Across all institutions, there was a statistically significant decrease in amount of time faculty spent advising and counseling students.  Faculty at research universities reported spending the least amount of time advising, followed by faculty at doctoral universities, liberal arts colleges, two-year colleges, and comprehensive universities.  The greatest proportional decrease occurred for faculty at research universities (11%), followed by doctoral universities and liberal arts colleges (7%) (p. 9).

Increasing Isolation and Emotional Sterility

According to Robert Kraft (2000), there is an isolation or aloneness and emotional sterility in faculty life that seems dangerous and perhaps toxic—a paradox since teaching is supposed to be a most rewarding enterprise.  Kraft reports on a tenure-track professor who quit her job because she found it to be so dreadfully lonely.

Brookfield (1995) speaks of this isolation and describes it as demoralizing and sapping teacher impulse and energy. According to him, “the atomistic isolation of teachers is psychologically, pedagogically, and politically damaging” (p. 250).

All of the above mentioned factors can lead to increased stress experienced by teaching faculty. Moreover, the increasing emphasis on managing multiple demands is a significant challenge for most teaching faculty.

Technology Produces Stress

The Higher Education Research Institute (HERI) has conducted a national survey of college and university faculty from across the country since 1969. This is a triennial survey designed to provide colleges and universities with timely information about the workload, teaching practices, job satisfaction and professional activities of collegiate faculty and administrators. Between 1969 and 1999, in six faculty surveys, data were collected on close to 500,000 faculty in almost 1,000 colleges.  In 1998-1999, HERI collected survey data from a national sample of 33,785 faculty members at 378 colleges, universities, and community colleges (HERI, 2000). 

From current survey findings, many faculty reported keeping up with technology as stressful (67 percent), almost equally for men and women teachers. Technology is the fourth most frequently cited source of stress among both genders. This ranking is higher than other cited sources of stress, such as research and publishing demands (50 percent), teaching load (62 percent), and the review and promotion process (46 percent). Nonetheless, all faculty believed that technology was educationally beneficial. We are all familiar with the challenges of having to learn new technology in addition to planning our teaching, not to mention the time involved mastering technology and learning how to incorporate it into our instructional programs in the classroom.  Moreover, once mastered, using technology consumes much time, including developing classroom presentations, creating web sites and courses, teaching on-line, and answering e-mails.

Personal  Stressors

On top of all of these teaching related stressors, faculty face increased pressures in their personal lives. In the 1998-1999 HERI survey, faculty reported experiencing stress due to household responsibilities (71 percent, up from 64 percent), physical health (48 percent, up from 38 percent), and caring for elderly parents (34 percent, up from 26 percent).

There also were significant gender differences in the amount of stress experienced by the type of stressor. Women were found to be more stressed than men over the academic climate in their institutions, citing such stressors as fear about subtle discrimination, the review and promotion process, sexual harassment, fair treatment and job security.  Women also were more likely than men to report having to interrupt their career for health or family reasons.   Women reported experiencing stress from managing household and child care responsibilities (81 percent as compared to 66 percent among men) and experiencing stress due to the “lack of personal time” (88 percent as compared to 75 percent of men). Personal concerns can negatively affect teaching and other academic work.

Effective and Positive Ways To Manage Teaching Loads and Avoid Burnout

It is essential that those of us who teach learn to manage our personal and professional lives.  If we fail to do so, we may experience chronic stress and eventually physical and mental burnout.  Burnout is a distinctive kind of job-related stress inhibiting one’s capacity to function

effectively because the body’s resources for resisting stress become exhausted.  Academic institutions are now paying increased attention to burnout because it diminishes the effective services of their very best people (Libby, 2001).

The suggestions below are from the research literature and a survey administered to senior faculty and administrators at two-and four-year colleges and universities.

Maintain a Positive Attitude

Teaching is a wonderful way to make a living. Unmovable bureaucracies or difficult students are part of work. Do not let them consume you. Try to develop a tolerance for unavoidable stress and cognitively restructure such situations, minimizing your sense of frustration, and looking for potential positive outcomes. Keeping what it is we do in perspective helps maintain a realistic appraisal of how things are going. Try to develop a realistic expectation for the amount and quality of your teaching. Tell yourself "job well done" when you deserve it.

Appreciate the Joy of Teaching and Learning

“Teaching is a constant learning process. Those of us most invested in this adventure would correlate 'the joy of sex’ with 'the joy of teaching and learning'—it’s always pleasurable, it’s always a high (when it works for teachers and learners), and it’s always different; and, in another realm of analogy, it truly is a 'religious experience.’  We owe it to ourselves and our students to feel the weight, trepidation, and responsibility that young Martin Luther felt before conducting his first mass. Besides making our craft a passionate and holy quest, we must count our coups constantly and never let too much time go by without reflecting on all the good we do and the recognition of it by our students and peers” (Beverly Blois, Division Chair, Communications and Humanities Division, Northern Virginia Community College, Loudoun Campus, Sterling, Virginia).

Negotiate a Realistic Teaching Schedule  

Try to negotiate a "sane” teaching load and schedule. For a morning person to teach all late afternoon or evening classes is insane. Teaching different sections of the same course are often easier than teaching a different course each hour.

Develop Short- and Long-Term Goals

"Ask the question: Where do I want to be in five years and what must I do to get there?  The most important thing is an assessment of balance. This should be evaluated every couple of years to make sure the short-term (5 year) and long-term (20 year) goals will be met or changed as required. Write these goals out and examine how they may shift and change over the next twenty years”  (Joan Roy, Head, Department of Psychology, University of Regina, Regina, SK, Canada).

Manage Time

Do not attempt to accomplish too many tasks in a day. Prioritize and leave a bit of time for yourself. There is always tomorrow although it may not feel like this is true sometimes. Several colleagues had suggestions for managing time better:

"Try new scheduling methods; use a palm pilot. I’ve learned to say ‘no’ to students and administrators when I know what they’re asking me to do will reduce my ability to accomplish my goals. Surprise! People actually understand that you’re busy and will not mind being put off for a little while. When I first started teaching, I felt a need to be available all the time, but now I realize it is better for students to understand my time is limited so they should plan ahead and use our time together more effectively. This often leaves more time for informal conversation” (Laurence Nolan, Assistant Professor of Psychology, Wagner College, Staten Island, New York).

"Don’t procrastinate and don’t let tasks pile up to an overwhelming burden. Keep to your schedule (Arnold Bradford, Professor of English, Northern Virginia Community College, Loudoun Campus, Sterling, Virginia).

"Have lecture notes, assignments, projects, etc., already planned, organized and completed before the course begins” (Christopher Blake, Assistant Professor of Spanish, Northern Virginia Community College, Loudoun Campus, Sterling, Virginia).

Establish Meaning and Relevance

"We need to do a better job at connecting our subject matter to some larger purpose and to our students’ daily lives. My field (history) is too often presented as a collection of random events and facts to memorize. We shouldn’t hesitate to search for meaning or a moral, even though our conclusions must remain tentative” (Patrick Reed, Professor of History, Northern Virginia Community College, Loudoun Campus, Sterling, Virginia).

Try to Pay Attention to Detail

Although sometimes difficult because of lack of time, try to pay attention to detail.  For example, try to proofread exams to catch typographical errors or ask a colleague to proof when it becomes difficult to see the errors.  Have an extra dry marker for the board or pen for the overhead projector, an extra battery for the microphone or extra bulb for the overhead projector.  Also remember to review your course syllabi and class schedule of activities on what you will be covering in the week ahead and modify as necessary.

Reward Yourself

Know what you find rewarding about teaching and try to do a bit of this each day. Recognize when your teaching is going well and feel good about this. Do not move immediately from one task to another; reward yourself with things you consider incentives.

Find Balance

"Take time for self, be responsible for the decisions you make (those big papers to grade, essay exams, etc.), block out time for yourself each week, walk around campus and spend time with colleagues. If you view teaching as a life-long task, you are not upset if you are a bit slow, or a bit tired. The goal is to reach students and have something to give each day” (Baron Perlman, University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh).

This colleague also recommended that if at all possible, leave your teaching on campus and take time to relax at home. Even better, try to find a bit of relaxation at your college or university each day. If you work at home, take time for things you cherish and enjoy. At work, block out free time in your appointment book and keep it sacred. Go for a walk on campus; visit with a colleague for a few minutes.

Connect with Colleagues

Talk about how things are going for you with peers and colleagues. Establish a support system. This can be done face-to-face or via e-mail with colleagues at your institution, and others who work at other institutions across the country. Talking with others helps us clarify and maintain perspective and feel "grounded."  Making these connections with colleagues also is an excellent way to relieve or minimize stress.

Summary

So I end this article where I began—with the inner self. Yes, teaching can be stressful.  While mastering stress is a life-long task, it can badly interfere with both the intellectual and emotional attractions of teaching.  The important virtue to remember about teaching and managing stress and loads is that we must not get carried away with our passion, we must seek balance in our lives, and we need to remember to reserve a part of our love we extend to others for ourselves. Find comfort in the awesome role you are playing in many people’s lives. The world is a much better place because of the works and gifts of teachers. In fact, without us, there would be no civilized world. Most of us love what we do.  Celebrate the high points. If you can’t seem to find any high points, then it is probably time to reassess where you need to be.

Remember to stay in touch with your inner self. Be forever mindful of who you are and the reasons you hold teaching in high esteem.  Manage the pedagogical stressors positively and keep in the forefront of your thinking those things which are true, beautiful and good about teaching.

So we’ve come full circle,... to the power within each of us that in communion with powers beyond ourselves, co-creates the world, for better or worse. The poet Rumi says, “If you are here unfaithfully with us, you’re causing terrible damage.”  The evidence of his claim is all around us, not least in education: when we are unfaithful to the inward teacher and to the community of truth, we do lamentable damage to ourselves, to our students, and to the great things of the world that our knowledge holds in trust. But Rumi would surely agree that the converse is equally true.  If you are here faithfully with us, you are bringing abundant blessing.  It is a blessing known to generations of students whose lives have been transformed by people who had the courage to teach—the courage to teach from the most truthful places in the landscape of self and world, the courage to invite students to discover, explore, and inhabit those places in the living of their own lives (Palmer, 1998, p.183).

References

Danielson, Charlotte. 1996.  Enhancing Professional Practice: A Framework for Teaching. Online. (http://www.ascd.org/readingroom/books/danielson96book.html).

Gmelch, W.H., P.K. Wilke, and N. Lovrich.  April 1983.  Sources of Stress In Academe: A National Perspective.  Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Montreal, Canada.  ED 232 518.

Higher Education Research Institute. 2000. Executive Summary: The American College Teacher: 1989-1999 HERI Faculty Survey Report.  Online.  (http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/heri/heri.html).

Kraft, Robert G. 2000.  “Teaching Excellence and the Inner Life of Faculty.”  Change 32(3): 48.

Palmer, Parker J. 1998.  The Courage to Teach: Exploring The Inner Landscape of a Teacher’s Life.  San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Trower, Cathy Ann. 1999.  “Alleviating The Torture Of The Tenure Track: All It Takes Is A Little Show And Tell.”  The Department Chair: A Newsletter for Academic Administrators 9(4).  Online: (http://gseweb.harvard.edu/~hpfa/torture.htm).