Get Your Students Hired
My stress list
1. Recent death in the family.
2. School standards that are so stiff and inconsiderate to the students.
3. Inconsistent advice from administration.
I am a cosmetology instructor and also have my own salon. I juggle on a day to day basis student needs, school requirements, and client demands. I stress the importance of customer service and working hard to my students. I get frustrated and stressed when something with a client or cosmetology related doesn't go as planned or the student doesn't want to have to work for it, the student automatically gives up and wants to quit.
Dennis, That sounds like a tough spot and I understand exactly where you are coming from. Student motivation can be low at times. We have high hopes for them and it can be disappointing when they do not aspire to do great things. Ultimately, we want them to be successful but we can't be motivated for them. We've got to find a way to inspire them to drive toward what we hope for them.
Dr. Melissa Read
The biggest stressor in my life right now is the work environment. Our school has gone through a lot of changes in the past month or so, including a number of layoffs. It's difficult to concentrate on day-to-day goals when you're not sure if you'll have a job at the end of the day.
My main career stressor concerns underachieving students. Towards the end of a term if there are students who are close to failng, I become very stressed out. It is ironic that I feel the stress, while they apparently don't. That's when I begin what I call the "Push", which is a concerted effort on my part, to get them to do their part.
My general areas of stress consist of:
1. Deviant students.
2. Student excuses for missing class, quizzes, homework assignments.
3. Administrational inconsistencies.
4. Family
I agree with this. It is very stressful. One wants to do our best and we dont have a lot of prep time. So when these things happend then it is stressfull. The students sometimes are very encouraging when they are attentive and participate and learn. Then there are those who think they know it all and aren't attentive nor studing. That can be disheartening. However, they are adults and I will provide them with tutoring time but it is up to them to get the help
One of the biggest stressors I have as an instructor is when students want everything "handed to them". In college part of the learning process is to think outside the box or to invetigate a matter further and apply knowledge from previous classes. Some students do not think that they need to remember anything from previous classes and want you to reteach the material to them.
I have little stress with my students who come to class to learn. They follow the rules, don’t miss class, study so they will get good grades on their exams, and complete and turn in their lab assignments…on time. The 10% of the class that does the opposite, are always forcing the rules, absent, poor test scores, and lab assignments not turned in or late cause me stress.
Bruce I agree the increase in these IEP's are adding an extra work load on us as instructors and requiring that we have to adjust our time to meet the special need of one over the majority I want to be able to meet both needs this is a challenge
The IEP students are a real stress factor for me. Thease students are caught up in the " system" . However, it is so hard for them to adapt to change when they arrive in the "real world setting".
I'm stressed about covering all the content required in my classes. I like to have lectures about content and then discussions about the content. Sometimes the discussions are lengthy, which takes away from instructional time. I believe this causes me stress because I lose time, but feel the students need the opportunity to talk about the topics.
A very large issue we are seeing today stems from the public schools. I really feel as a scociety we are letting the students of our future down. Weare not holding them to the standards we have set. The world seems to just want to push them in and let them struggle. We as instructors have seen a huge increase of IEPs over the past few years and they continue to increase.
It would be great if all we had to do was teach but unfortunately there are other things we half to do. I do a lot of tutoring before class and we deal with a large amount of information in my class. I have tutoring scheduled almost every day and any time I get additional work added right after class or at the beginning of the day it can interfere with scheduled tutoring and it can be stressful for my students and myself when these administrative duties get in the way of scheduled tutoring.
Some stresses of my life are confusion regarding what I should be doing or when I should be doing it.
Should I buy a home or keep renting? Should I get my Masters or keep working? Should I save my money or go on vacation?
The good news for me is that I actually don't have stress at the college that I work for. My stress is the full time job that I have been employed with for the last 13 years. It is so repetitious and the patient call and come into our office with a lot of none sense at times. Some things are common sense, but yet they make it extremely difficult and unnecessary--this is a stressor. Plus for us to be a so-called paperless society, WE HAVE MORE PAPER!!
It just piles up at times. It is hard to get to all of it when you are seeing double of the original amount of patients in a day, the phone calls are hideous and the paperwork NEVER stops! And we don't have adequate help to lessen the load. And if I don't get out of the office by 5:15pm, then I run the risk of being late to the college, and lo and behold I hit some traffic!
Those are my stressors. But when I get to the school, I am calm, happy and ready to teach.
LT
General areas of stress generation include school administration with unclear, unwritten "policies", students admitted to a program who may not be a "good" fit, i.e. without solid prerequisites for a technical, accelerated course and documentation requirements for the program accrediting body.
Unknown administrative requirements or tasks that have a short turn around timeline is a major stressor when you have other projects in the work.
I find it stressful when my students are not actively participating in the course and not communicating with me to give an explanation as to why. Since I teach online courses it is critical that my students are communicating with me often but I occasionally have students who just don't seem to care even when I reach out to help.