Orientation prog on "Managing Stress In Classrooms"
Teachers of Bharathi Matriculation and Yuva Bharathi schools at an orientation programme on "Managing stress in classrooms" in Coimbatore on Monday. It appears that the school teachers are way more stressed than the students. They may not have to learn reams of lecture notes and go through the chores of home work, but that does not free them from the stranglehold of stress. At an orientation programme on stress management organised by The Hindu at the Bharathi Matriculation School, the teachers were given tips on how to handle stress within the classroom.
Some of the most common things that caused stress were when students did not pay attention in class, when they did not perform up to the teachers’ expectations and also when they asked questions the teachers were not able to answer, the teachers said.
Probably one of the most over-used expressions in this day and age, stress was something that could be defined and managed to one’s own advantage, said Pradeep Yuvraj, Director, Sales and Marketing of Finerva Financial Solutions Private Limited, the resource person. “Stress is just our reaction to a situation,” he said, pointing out that it could be positive too. For instance, if human beings did not feel a certain amount of stress at all, there would be no motivation to perform and achieve a goal, he said.
One should learn to develop the ability to identify and utilise the positive stress, called the ‘Eustress,’ he said. In fact, successful people were all those who had mastered the art of harnessing the energy of Eustress. When the mind was under stress, it would lose its ability to think and act sensibly.
Teachers often worked under stressful conditions, with pressure from the school management, the parents and the students themselves. They should evolve a method of beating stress, if they wanted to play a positive role in shaping the future of the children in their class, Mr. Pradeep said.
He suggested that to start with, the teachers could maintain a journal where they could note down the main persons, places, events or things that caused them stress. That would help them identify the factors that triggered negative stress in them and differentiate them from the positive stress. Next, they could rank these factors on a scale of one to ten. Then, increase the frequency of the journal entries to one in four hours. Also, they should write down what they think should have been the right way to react in the given stressful situation. If they continued the exercise for a week, and analysed the events, their perception towards stress would change for the better and they would be better equipped to handle it, he said. More than 250 teachers attended the programme.
