SINGAPORE: As Betty* lay curled into a ball on the floor — in tears, hyperventilating, heart beating rapidly — the secondary school teacher hoped the panic attack would fade soon. Because she knew she could not afford to spend time away from work.
“I have to get over it, I have to go and mark (papers) and do my work,” she thought.
Her panic attacks typically happen once a fortnight. A heavy workload, dealing with parents’ expectations and large class sizes are perennial stressors, for her and some other teachers.
It was worse for Betty when Singapore moved to full home-based learning in April last year amid concerns over escalating COVID-19 infections. The frequency of her panic attacks increased to twice a week.
“We suddenly had to pivot to online learning … in a very short couple of days, push out and create resources from scratch, record ourselves doing online lectures, design online quizzes,” she said.
“That was extremely stressful. We still needed to give feedback to our students and continue giving them work and continue preparing more resources. It was like the work never stops. I was really, really burnt out — very, very depleted.”
Apart from the workload, some teachers feel that their mental health has been overlooked or not prioritised.
After the River Valley High School (RVHS) incident took place, Susan*, who is from another school, was on the alert for students on “suicide watch”. But also running through her mind was whether she could finally raise the issue of teachers’ mental health.
So when she was giving her principal a routine update on her at-risk students, she decided to “boldly ask” about that.
“I was rather saddened to hear her say, ‘the mental health of teachers? It depends on all of you. You guys are adults. You need to take care of each other and watch out for one another,’” she recounted.
While it sounded “noble”, it felt “quite invalidating”, Susan said. “It’s a failure to recognise that you need to take care of the caregiver.”
Betty and Susan are among the 100-plus teachers who responded to CNA Insider’s call on Instagram for teachers to share how they were coping mentally.
One teacher wrote: “It’s terrible being a teacher in the past two years. I know my mental health is at an all-time low.”
Another said: “These two years have been especially rough because … the workload has increased drastically, and it’s taking a physical and emotional toll on us. We’re in a pandemic and no concession for teachers has been made.”
A primary school teacher who’s been teaching for four years shared: “When we expressed our stress and mental exhaustion, we were simply told, ‘Teachers should learn how to manage their own stress.’ I contemplated quitting every week for my well-being.”
In an interview with CNA Insider, Mrs Chua-Lim Yen Ching, the deputy director-general of education (professional development) from the Ministry of Education (MOE) said the ministry “can’t deny that COVID-19 has affected us”.
She disclosed that in an MOE engagement survey conducted in June among 460 teachers, seven in 10 respondents said “they can cope” with work stress.
“But having said that, we still need to help the three out of 10. (It) doesn’t mean that because seven out of 10 said that they were good, then we say okay,” she said.
Questions about teachers’ well-being were added to the survey for the first time last year. “We realised that the staff’s well-being was very important, and we wanted to have representative data,” she noted.
“All of us will have stress, (but) the most important (thing) is that we must be able to cope. It’s only when you’re stressed and you can’t cope, we get worried.”
So why do some teachers struggle to keep their heads above water and, like some of their students, fall through the cracks?
TEACHERS’ PANDEMIC WOES
Asked about the stressors affecting them lately, most teachers CNA Insider spoke to pointed to the rapid switch to home-based learning during last year’s circuit breaker.
They cited the need to create online lesson materials quickly, pick up skills to deliver engaging lessons and make sure that students attend classes.
That period “played with (her) mind”, said Susan, a secondary school teacher of 15 years. She was frustrated when “half the time” she had to ask students to switch on their camera and “every morning” she had to call students who did not sign in.
“I was very frustrated such that I had to go and run every day,” she added.
While full home-based learning was already a challenge for younger, more tech-savvy teachers, Melissa* said some older colleagues were “left out”.
“Older teachers were like, ‘How to log in here, how to log in there?’ There was a lot of stress put on them,” said the secondary school teacher.
Indeed, *Lisa, who is in her 50s and has been teaching at a primary school for 20 years, felt “shitty” when home-based learning came into force, as the “learning curve” to pick up new technologies was “very steep”.
“Compared to my time (when I started teaching), I wanted to learn so much from teachers who’ d been teaching (for a long time). But now, newer teachers look at me like I have nothing much to (contribute),” she said.
Today, these teaching and administrative worries have only taken a new shape as physical lessons resume on a “blended learning model” where home-based learning occurs once a fortnight.
Whenever there is a spike in COVID-19 cases, David* must also “stand by”with online lesson packages in the event that schools revert to full home-based learning.
The secondary school mathematics teacher recalled a time when “almost every single day”, he had to prepare extra material; “most” of it did not end up being used.
On top of the extra teaching workload, teachers now have a host of “nightmarish” COVID-related administrative duties, like keeping track of students’ and fellow teachers’ quarantine orders and COVID-19 test results, said secondary school geography teacher Sally*.
“The Ministry of Health was constantly coming up with new directives on how long to keep them at home, whether the school will go on home-based learning, when approved absence starts (and) ends, the swab tests.
“It was a lot to deal with,” she added.
All this additional work has put teachers in a state of “heightened alert”, said Singapore Teachers’ Union (STU) general secretary Mike Thiruman.
“They (still) have to do everything that they’d been doing before COVID-19 … There’s a lot of nervous energy, and they have to be on guard all the time.
“There’s a limit to how long you can be in this heightened alert state. (At some point) it just wears you out.”
More than 80% of S'pore teachers say Covid-19 pandemic has hurt their mental health: Survey
SINGAPORE - More than 80 per cent of teachers said their mental health has been negatively impacted by their work amid the Covid-19 pandemic in a nationwide survey.
They cited long hours as one reason, with 80.6 per cent indicating they worked more than 45 hours a week.
This is above the average for the working population in Singapore, said the Singapore Counselling Centre (SCC), which conducted the study.
Results of the mental well-being survey of 1,325 teachers working in levels from pre-schools to junior colleges was released on Wednesday (Sept 22).
More than 62 per cent said their physical health had also declined, reporting ailments such as irritability, insomnia and recurring headaches.
Almost half, or about 43 per cent, said their personal relationships suffered and around 33 per cent fell sick easily.
SCC had sent the teachers the survey via e-mail or through social media from Aug 13 to Sept 3. The e-mail addresses were listed on their school websites.
When asked how they felt about their job, the top three emotions identified were negative.
About 56 per cent said they were overwhelmed, followed by around 39 per cent who said they were frustrated and 21 per cent indicating they were worried.
The lack of work-life balance and excessive workloads topped the common stress factors identified by those surveyed.
Teachers said they faced long working hours, with over 80 per cent putting in more than 45 hours a week. According to statistics from the Ministry of Manpower, full-time employed workers clocked in an average of 45.4 hours per week in 2020.
At a press conference on Wednesday, Ms Karen Soon, project lead of the study, said the culture of long working hours and an inability to switch off from work was strongly linked to the lack of work-life balance.
She added that primary, secondary and junior college teachers were more vocal about the issue of additional workload than pre-school and special education teachers.
A teacher juggles multiple duties, including academic teaching, classroom management, dealing with parents and event planning, said Ms Soon.
This has grown with the Covid-19 pandemic through additional responsibilities for teachers, such as enforcing safe management measures and classes for students who miss lessons due to quarantine orders.
A secondary school teacher, 27, who declined to be named, told The Straits Times that stress levels have risen because of the many unexpected scenarios caused by Covid-19.
He said: "For example, having to cover for colleagues or students who miss lessons, and you have to find ways for them to keep up with the pace.
"It's the uncertainty and the fluidity of the current situation that make it difficult, especially when you can't plan. Can you have extra lessons? Can you have remedial (classes)?"
More at https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/parenting-education/more-than-80-of-teachers-say-the-pandemic-has-hurt-their-mental-health
You want an easy job that pays well? Then join the PAP - be warned though they only accept bona fide jiak liao bees.
If things get so bad, why not switch to private tutoring? The working hours are largely flexible, plus you will never ever be inundated by CCAs and miscellaneous administrative duties again.
These fucking strawberries who can't stand the heat can always shatter their iron rice bowls by quitting straightaway.