Teachers and Performance Anxiety

This is a good time of year to address the prevalent issue of anxiety among the teaching population. As teachers prepare to head back to the classroom, many feel a wide range of emotions cropping back up. As a retired teacher it is time for me to come clean about how I suffered during my thirty year career and offer some suggestions on how to find relief.

My own particular anxiety was of the performance type; I always wanted my lessons to be perfect and well-received and feared losing control of the classroom. Now three years retired, I still have dreams of unbelievable chaos in my classroom. Of course, in real life, I know I did a good job and had a successful career, but the fears never went away. They manifested in the form of chronic headaches, stomach upset and fatigue. I finally sought help from my doctor when going through a divorce put everything over the top and I couldn’t cope any more.

So I decided to use medication and just the lowest dose really helped me immediately. It just slowed down my overthinking brain enough to function like a normal human being for the first time in my life. I was able to carry out tasks without always worrying about the next three tasks I had coming up. It was a huge relief. My headaches went away almost immediately. The medication also helped me socially to relax and interact more with my colleagues. 

I think much more needs to be said to beginner teachers about how to cope in healthy ways. Teaching is a very isolating job and often the newbies fear looking incompetent if they ask for help. I feel that peer or team mentorship should be obligatory to provide new teachers with support as they embark on their careers. Just having someone check in on you and provide time saving tips and an emotional sounding board is huge. Ask your administrator to set you up with a mentor or find one yourself who you like. Any decent  teacher would take this as a compliment and say yes. So to my colleagues, all the best in your coming year. 

Have you ever felt anxious about your work? Please comment below.