„From a viewpoint of society, teacher is someone that arrives at home at 2 pm and always has holidays. Society does not see time spend by work and does not perceive importance of our job for future of country,” shared his opinion teacher in online survey, which was organized by Centre of Social and Psychological Sciences, SAV. Survey was made on sample of 490 teachers of Slovak elementary schools, from 26.9. 2020 to 11.10. 2020, in time, when most of education was not distance. Data were collected as part of research design of dissertation thesis of The Institute of Social Sciences of Slovak Academy of Science graduant Alexander Loziak, who under supervision of Denisa Fedáková studies work stress of elementary school teachers.
Research investigated degree of teachers stress related to different aspects of their work. One of key findings was that teachers perceived their social acknowledgment as potent stressor. Second stage teachers perceived their social acknowledgment significantly more stressful than first stage teachers. Older teachers (from 45 years old to 66 years old) also perceived their social acknowledgement as significantly more stressful compared to their younger colleagues (from 25 years old to 45 years old).
Alarming were answers to question: How do you perceive current social acknowledgment of your work? In this question, teachers submitted open, voluntarily answers. From 382 teachers, which answered the question, 353 teachers reacted with negative answer. Among most frequent answers were: Very weak, Inadequate and Miserable.
„Teacher is not positively evaluated in today society. He/she is responsible for everything, from perspective of parent, it is teachers fault when child fails in some way in educational process. Teacher is pressured to comply all requests from parent. We are unappreciated,” says one of the teachers.
„All of society just waits, till teacher makes mistake,” was another answer full of disappointment.
Another aspects of work, that bother teachers are frequent changes in educational system and too much of administrative work.
„Our research points out that teachers in their work encounter many situations, which they perceive as stressful. Low social acknowledgment is burden that bothers teachers beside their everyday duties. In light of these findings we as society have opportunity to really think, how we perceive teachers and if we appreciate their work. Attitude of each of us contributes to social acknowledgement of teachers, so it is up to us to try and improve current situation,” assess research findings author Loziak.