Teachers love their high stress jobs

According to a report in the September issue of Professionally Speaking, the magazine published by the Ontario College of Teachers (OCT), teachers (at least in Ontario) love their jobs, but suffer stress brought on by time constraints, parent complaints, performance reviews and school politics.

Eighty-one per cent of teachers polled in an annual survey carried out by Compas Inc. said they would recommend teaching as a career - a marked jump from the 67 per cent who said the same three years ago.

Twice as many teachers say they are stressed as the run of the population. "Teachers love their jobs and want to do all they can for their students, but they're experiencing enormous stress most of it beyond their control," says Doug Wilson, registrar of the teaching profession's licensing body.

Sixty-one per cent of those who responded cited time as their biggest stressor, followed by parents' blame for student underperformance (56 per cent), school politics (46 per cent) and teacher performance appraisals (45 per cent).

Professionally Speaking is published quarterly and distributed to 195,000 members of the OCT.