Mostly I’m driven to tears, and feeling totally unappreciated: Exploring the emotional wellness of high school teachers

Abstract

Teaching is a challenging profession in the 2000s. This is supported by international literature on education that reports on how the work environment, unreasonable expectations of school communities and the socio-economic challenges of society are creating the potential for emotional illness amongst teachers. Of concern is that extensive exposure to work- linked stressors could negatively affect teachers’ personal wellbeing as well as that of the organisational culture. There are, however, few studies that report on teachers’ understanding and experiences of their work context stressors. This article reports on research that was conducted in the Helderberg area of the Western Cape Province, South Africa on teachers’ personal constructions of their emotional wellbeing. The Helderberg area is serviced by eight high schools. Six teachers were purposively selected from two former model C-schools and two former coloured schools and researched on their experiences at their respective schools. The findings showed that all six teachers’ emotional vulnerability were linked to how they were being acted upon by the pupils, administrators, parents and national education department. Their sense of self worth was being eroded in the workplace and their mental state was impacting negatively on the quality of their work. They all reported a decrease in their productivity and work ethic. Furthermore, these professionals reported that they were exhibiting paranoid-type behaviour that is associated with overwhelmingly negative emotions. These findings suggest that the educational workplace is in need of transformation if teachers, as professionals, are to do their work effectively.