Teaching is a job that requires various skills: good communication, kindness, leadership, balancing between friendliness and strictness, etc. It can be a fun job but it can be a stressful one too. I love to teach and I mostly have a good time with students, but it gets stressful because it is highly demanding. In this take I will focus on the stressful part of teaching, especially in college, based on my personal experience and also on observing other people's experiences. I believe that teachers, especially college instructors are under a lot of pressure today.
First, some institutions expect teachers to behave like a machine that should do an unrealistic amount of work within a short time. In all institutions I worked in, a very short deadline is given to instructors to grade student exams and papers. This can be fine sometimes, but at certain times it becomes crazy.
Another negative side of teaching is the huge expectations the institutions draw- directly or indirectly- for instructors. The instructor is not just expected teach and check students' understanding- he or she is expected to be- especially in private institutions, a mother, a father, and even a psychiatrist. For instance, instructors are sometimes expected to spoon feed the students, like when they do no effort to get information, check their notes, or the like. Also, the instructor is expected to tell them how they should use their email accounts or so, even if it is a language class. As an instructor, I am very helpful and kind to students, but I just find reminding instructors that they 'should' show students how to log in in the system- for instance- as an exaggerated expectation from the instructor.
Another element I want to discuss is the amount of freedom the instructor gets when teaching a certain curriculum. While some colleges give reasonable amount of freedom and let the instructor figure out how to pace the class, some institutions literally suffocate the instructor. Not only he or she gets a tight outline of the subject, he or she has to teach points and use materials, even if they would not be helpful in certain classes.
Added to the points discussed above, there is a major negative point about teaching, no matter what the level of students is. Teaching can lead to anxiety and depression. Because of the nature of the job and the huge responsibilities and expectations, anxiety and depression can easily creep into a teacher's life. For example, If the teacher has naughty students, she or he can keep thinking for all the semester along how to make them behave: it is true that this it should not be the primary job of a teacher to teach behavior, especially at high school and above, but the unrealistic expectations schools have put teachers under much pressure. As a result, some of them can become 'perfectionists'.
Teaching is a good career to pursue, but only when the right conditions exist. I am still an instructor, but soon I am planning to change my career. I was more energetic and happy years ago when I started teaching, but now I feel I have to switch to a more free, calm and creative career.
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