Is teaching good for your health? Yes and no. Mostly no. Why? Too much to do, too little time, too little support. So, take care of yourself, Teach, and you can reap the good side of teaching.
Illness
Your lifestyle on teaching can create illness. Stress, sedentary classrooms, few bathroom breaks, ignoring healthy eating, limited sleep--you're writing a lesson plan for illness.
Germs! Germs! Go Away!
Taking Care of Teacher
Depression
Teaching is a full-on contact sport without time-outs. A teacher must deal with her/his personal life or the pushed-down emotions and thoughts will react. Although no one talks about it, going to counseling and getting help really works. Don't be too proud to get help.
Depression in Teachers Impacts Classroom Learning
Workplace Stress
What Motivates Teachers?
http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/07/30/whamotivates-teachers/
Long Hours
A teacher doesn't have to be a perfectionist to get sucked into a 70 hour work week. A teacher is a teacher 24-7 just by definition of working with students--maybe we should be paid a consulting fee for using our expertise on problem solving; thinking about the kids away from school. We do that even in our sleep. Ever dream about class? Be realistic, demand a life for yourself and your family.
American Teachers Spend More Time In The Classroom Than World Peers, Says Report
Job Insecurity
Without tenure, I doubt I would have managed to keep teaching long enough to retire from a public school district. Why? When teaching in a district with the most challenged demographic (high poverty, violence, ELLs and Special Education high counts) all educational stratas are stressed from security staff to superintendent meaning it takes very remarkable administrators to keep everything going peacefully--just among the staff. At times, I was privileged to work under such administrators.
My work was appreciated, other times, it was completed under difficult circumstances. As a Special Education teacher, we were expected to complete services for twice the legal caseload. One time, the Union rep at my school told me with great disappointment, that a Grade 5 teacher would be RIFd rather than me because I was Special Ed.
At times, the students and I had nowhere to test, and not much room to meet for IEPs. But I prefer to recall the outstanding professionals I learned from, when we worked together as a team, students and families were helped. Many of those team members were General Education, and many brilliant professionals from the Special Education field. That was good for me, but when there was tenuous support from admin, lack of collaboration from colleagues--only tenure kept me going, watching the calendar until I could retire and start something new.
Job Insecurity: The False Dilemma of Teacher Tenure
