Blog #510: Why I, as a Former Special Education Student, Say That Teachers Have Mental Health, Too!

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Being a teacher may seem like a rewarding experience, a chance to mold minds and prepare young people for the real world. Some view teaching as a way of building personal character, a chance to demonstrate leadership and a way to make an impact on not just the lives of students, but an entire student body.

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However, that all but pales in comparison to what is really going on in a teacher's mental state of mind. No matter how inspiring teachers are to their students, no matter that if they have a personality that is welcoming, teachers, like the rest of us, fight personal demons. In fact, there is often an old saying that when it comes to teachers, God picks your colleagues, the Devil picks your students.

Now that isn't to say that it is all true, but as a former special education student, I would often try to go into the minds of my teachers, no matter the subject, and try to put myself in their shoes of what they have to deal with on a daily basis. You'd be surprised how many times they say "quiet" on a daily basis, trying to talk over the students because they would much rather have social hour than learning about the topic in front of them, or just dealing with situations that don't come with the job description.

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The fact is that teachers have mental health to take care of as well and if a teacher is struggling with mental health issues outside the classroom, they bring those issues into the classroom causing students to take advantage and making the problem worse for the teacher to the point where they don't want to teach anymore.

This happened to me in my sophomore year of high school when my homebase teacher at the time couldn't handle the pressures of teaching and abruptly resigned. I feel that in this day and age, the mental health of teachers is at a much higher risk on account that students are becoming more and more uncontrolled and rebellious.

They try to teach the student, but then the student tries to be a smart aleck and make things hard for everyone, causing the teacher to lose his or her passion and go on tirades that special education students like me don't want to hear. Yes, this is coming from a special education student who went through these moments both in special education classes and general education classes.

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But, most recently, mental health issues related to teachers is at an all time high, considering that today's generation of students come into class with only one goal in mind: to be entitled to do whatever they want because they think they know all. There are teachers who are cursed at by students, students talking on their cell phones while the teacher is trying to teach, or even in the case of a teacher in the United Kingdom, a student threw a pair of scissors at the teacher.

All of these scenarios bring out the devil who picks the teacher's students. Some students are respectful and there are other students who could really care less.

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This also brings up yet another trend on TikTok that is driving up the mental health of teachers and administrators. Nowadays, students are using Chromebooks as part of their learning and the trend in question is having students stick paper clips, pins or needles in the Chromebook causing it to catch fire. When teachers and administrators see this, the stress level goes up further and the mental health of the teacher and administrator is damaged further.

Now, if you take away social media platforms, cell phones and anything else that doesn't belong in any school setting, not only would the entire academic world be a better place, but also the stress level of teachers and administrators would be at a reasonable level. The trouble is that students feel that they have a right at everything in life and that includes impacting the mental health of others.

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I mean, an example of a teacher's mental health being impacted was portrayed in the film, "Blackboard Jungle" (1955) where a group of students destroy their math teacher's collection of records and his mental health is so impacted, he ends up quitting.

The fact is that one key essential to a teacher's mental health is respect from the students. Respect is a two way street and respect is something to be earned. By the student giving teachers the respect they deserve, the teacher's mental health is stabilized and the teacher will respect them back. If the teacher gets respect, then he or she will face other students and go home at the end of the day with a stable state of mind.

If the teacher doesn't get respect, then he or she will bring that lack of respect they deserve to other students that don't have a mischief bone in their bodies like I was back in the day and then, they take it home and that unstable mental health is brought upon the teacher's personal family.

The fact of the matter is that teachers deserve better, not just for the sake of the students, but for their own mental health. There is an open door policy teachers can use if they are having a bad day with a student or just in general. The fact is that teachers are human like you and me and they were once students too who fought demons of their own. So if you are a teacher or an administrator keep earning that respect because you deserve it and remember that if you are having a bad day, talk to someone you know such as a colleague or even a student you deeply trust.

Mental Health matters to teachers and it's up to the community they are a part of to support them during good times and bad times!!

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Catch you all later!!