Mental health is of great importance in the life of students. Without proper encouragement and motivation to study, which is gathered only when they have good mental health, they are unable to attend online classes and participate in online teaching.
Teachers have also shown a trend of having lower deep of mental health issues because the pandemic has demotivated them. They have to teach online and cope with the technological changes, and it is expected from a teacher to cooperate with every requirement while completing their training. Students are looked after by their teachers and parents because this is their growing phase, and they’re expected to have mental health issues once in a while which could also be easily solved added through therapy, counseling, and other processes. However, what about the teachers?
Let us have a look at how mental health can affect the educational outcomes of a teacher when they teach online and offline, and students in their learning processes.
Impacts on teachers
- Low quality of coaching: Teachers have the most important task of providing fruitful education to the students, through various strategies and classroom processes. If they are the ones who have poor mental health, they will be unable to provide good quality coaching.
- Poor communication skills: Communication is very important for teachers to carry out as much as students because they have an entire hierarchy to interact with, the school staff, and have to continuously keep reporting back things to the management. Poor communication skills due to declining mental health can lead teachers to not interact as much in a classroom, and cause barriers in the management system due to unavailability.
- Class performance: The class performance depends on how well students are advancing with their academics and other social aspects. If it is the teacher then self, unable to bring the class together and provide valuable feedback so that they can work on those areas, class performance will decline.
- Complete burnout: Teachers face burnout when they have exhausted themselves over the years or past few months. It was a common trend during the pandemic because they were working extra hard through online mediums. When teachers go through complete burnout, it is mostly disadvantageous to the students rather than themselves.
- Unwilling to continue teaching as a career: The last stage of having bad mental health is landing up in a situation where they would not like to continue teaching as a career at all, thinking that it is the job that has been bothering them.
Impacts on students
- Lack of concentration: When students have something at the back of their mind that they are being challenged with, all they keep thinking about is how they can avoid the situation, or how they can overcome it. Some students, on the other hand, do not want to think about it at all. Since all of this takes a lot of effort, they are unable to concentrate on anything related to their academic life.
- Low rate of progression: Students facing mental health challenges are uninterested in a subject, do not look forward to completing assignments, and face issues interacting in the classroom and at home. All of these lead to a bad performance in the classroom, which means a negative rate of progression at most if the severity is extreme.
- Lack of energy and enthusiasm: Not everyone affected by declining rates of mental health is affected by a lack of enthusiasm for things, but students commonly face a lack of energy towards their academic experiences.
- Unable to socialize: When students are going through issues, they find themselves unable to interact with their classmates, friends, family members, and teachers. Having mental health issues drains students of their energy and willingness to interact with others, being the main cause of their low level of engagement.
Students and teachers are advised to constantly look up for mental health help from the school, or outside. The school management system can play a role here by introducing therapy right at school for the comfort of the students and teachers. When people are in a good place mentally, they can motivate themselves and spread positivity around them. In the present world, people have become more accepting of such issues and are actively looking up ways to tackle such challenges. Educational institutions are also recognizing the importance of good mental health.