Overcrowded classrooms, lack of support professionals for inclusion students, lack of professional and career appreciation. These are some of the factors that contribute to the worsening mental health of teachers in Curitiba, according to reports obtained by the Brazil of Fato Paraná.
K*, a teacher who preferred not to be named, says that her daily life in the classroom made her develop an anxiety disorder. “I started to feel depressed, at other times irritated…until I triggered anxiety attacks, I even thought I was having a heart attack, at first. Only then did I seek treatment. Today I spend horrors on this: medication and a psychologist ”, she says.
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The feeling of mental exhaustion caused by the profession is generally felt among teachers. The survey “Mental Health of Educators 2022”, carried out by Nova Escola, points out that 21.5% of teachers consider their mental health to be “bad” or “very bad”. The survey was carried out with 5,000 education professionals from all over Brazil, 84.6% from public schools and 39.7% from early years teachers. Teachers from the southern region of Brazil have a higher percentage of negative evaluation of their own mental health. As an aggravating factor, 44.6% of the educators stated that they did not have any professional support to deal with problems related to mental health.
K* says that there is no professional support in Curitiba’s schools for professionals with mental health issues. “Many people have already naturalized our mental illness, as if it were an inherent part of the profession, living stressed, tired has become normal. Only after we get sick do they do something: refer them to occupational health”, she reports.
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The work as a teaching professional has an aggravating factor, according to the teacher: the idea of vocation or love for the profession, which should overcome any kind of problem that exists in everyday life. “It seems that admitting that work made us sick would be a sign of lack of love, a reflection of the maternal discourse that still surrounds the education of young children”, she says. In the teacher’s assessment, the prevention of mental illness in teachers has only one way out: to improve working conditions.
The report of Brazil of Fato Paraná contacted the City Hall of Curitiba asking for an official position. As of this writing, there has been no response.
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Source: BdF Paraná
Editing: Lucas Botelho
