What Happens When the Teacher Is Depressed? Research Paper Example

Abstract

There is significant evidence highlighting the relationship between a teacher’s well-being and children’s development. Depression among teachers can adversely affect school-related competencies such as academic motivation and school engagement. Depression causes teachers become disengaged from students’ outcomes, which will lead to lower performance, leading to stagnation and school dropouts. Without competent and motivated teachers, the next generation of adults will constitute an undertrained workforce and underachieving adults. Consequently, the local population will compete for lower-skilled and low-income jobs, with a significant population remaining unemployed and engaging in unproductive vices.

Introduction

Among all career options, the teaching profession is among the most stressful career selection. As a result, teachers experience some of the highest stress levels, which makes them highly susceptible to depression.  Consequently, the effects of teacher’s depression have extensive consequences whose impact can be felt from the local to the state level.  Individuals venturing into the teaching profession are not exposed to the various challenges and needs that their career demands. Similarly, their training curriculum does not extensively prepare the teachers on coping and overcoming the effects of depression. As a result, powerful determinants, including personal characteristics and environmental perspectives, impact students’ educational progress and academic functioning.

Impact of depression among teachers from local perspective

Teachers are responsible for training and shaping child care quality which has vital implications to their emotional and psychological development. The adult and children’s interactions highly influence children during early childhood, which is vital for early skill formation. Thus, early education tutors play a significant role with long-lasting effects at the local level. There is significant evidence highlighting the relationship between a teacher’s well-being and children’s development.  Thus, a child’s quality of interaction is impacted by teachers exhibiting depressive symptoms.  According to McLean et al., (2017) teachers with depression are characterized by less sensitivity and more withdrawal. Depression among teachers can adversely affect school-related competencies such as academic motivation and school engagement. Research conducted with third-grade teachers revealed that depression adversely affects classroom learning settings, directly affecting literacy outcomes. Similarly, a child’s socio-emotional development is impeded when depression causes deterioration of a teachers’ mental health (McLean et al., 2017).

Impact of depression among teachers from state perspective

A teacher’s performance is directly hampered by depression. When a teacher is stressed or dissatisfied, they have lower morale, which affects students, colleagues, and parents. Teachers dealing with depression caused by either job dissatisfaction or other issues in their environment or personal lives will directly interfere with a child’s performance (McLean et al., 2017). Since time, energy, focus, and involvement diminish with depression. As a result, teachers become disengaged from students’ outcomes, which are evident at the state level. When teachers give the minimum in regards to the amount of time and energy within the classroom, the students most affected are those reliant on tutors to motivate them (Kidger et al., 2016). Unmotivated students will completely disengage from school since they feel overwhelmed and under-resourced to teach themselves. As a result, the absence of goal orientation and school engagement will lead to lower performance, leading to stagnation and school dropouts. A teacher’s role within the classroom is also inclusive of setting a good moral example for students. While teachers may not share their personal lives with students, their behavior, attitudes, and character are easily interpretable by students. As such, depression makes teachers adopt less favorable behavior such as incompetency and sluggishness, leading to under-prioritization of educational goals by students themselves (Byun, 2020).

Impact of depression among teachers from national perspective

At the national level, depression among teachers and the unavailability of coping mechanisms lead to job dissatisfaction. While other highly stressful careers have professional development models which address mental health, teaching is highly underprioritized. Similarly, there is a lack of appropriate interventions and policies at the national level that can consistently offer health support systems to educators. As a result, educators will identify other career opportunities with a lower stress rate and higher job satisfaction. In addition, a decline in teaching professionals will put more pressure on current teaching staff, causing further harm to an already volatile ecosystem. Without competent and motivated teachers, the next generation of adults will constitute an undertrained workforce and underachieving adults. Similarly, professionals requiring a high level of academic accomplishment will lack the appropriate workforce to pursue them. As a result, the nation will be under-educated, leading to a mass influx of educated professionals immigrating to compete for highly lucrative jobs. Furthermore, the local population will compete for lower-skilled and low-income jobs, with a significant population remaining unemployed.  Furthermore, innovation and scientific discoveries will stagnate as the native population will lack the necessary educational background and achievement mentality that causes competitive thinking. As a result, the economic and financial stability will deteriorate and decline as the importation of products and services will exceed export capacity. Thus, increasing the national debt while lowering the state’s currency (Kidger et al., 2016).

Conclusion

The paper has offered an in-depth valuation of the impact of depression among teachers at the local, state, and national levels. At the local level, depression adversely affects socio-emotional development within classroom learning, directly affecting literacy outcomes. At the state level, depression makes teachers disengage from students’ outcomes leading to the absence of goal orientation and school engagement, causing low performance, educational stagnation, and school dropouts. Finally, at the state level, depression lowers economic and financial stability as most of the population becomes unemployable.

References

Byun, C.-S. (2020). Elementary Teachers’ Perception on Anxiety and Depression of Students with Learning Difficulties. Journal of Special Education & Rehabilitation Science, 59(1), 289–308. https://doi.org/10.23944/jsers.2020.03.59.1.14

Kidger, J., Brockman, R., Tilling, K., Campbell, R., Ford, T., Araya, R., King, M., & Gunnell, D. (2016). Teachers’ wellbeing and depressive symptoms, and associated risk factors: A large cross sectional study in English secondary schools. Journal of Affective Disorders, 192, 76–82. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2015.11.054

McLean, L., Abry, T., Taylor, M., Jimenez, M., & Granger, K. (2017). Teachers’ mental health and perceptions of school climate across the transition from training to teaching. Teaching and Teacher Education, 65, 230–240. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2017.03.018