A mentally healthy and well-adjusted teacher plays a vital role in promoting the mental health of school children and in attaining the mental health objective of education. If the mental health of the teacher is inadequate, it is bound to affect adversely the mental health of school children. In order to be mentally healthy, a teacher has to develop and cultivate certain personal professional qualities.
Of the desirable personal qualities, alertness, enthusiasm and interest in pupils and classroom activities, the ability to maintain natural and pleasant person to person relationships, cordiality and friendship, recognition of one’s own mistakes ; patience, sympathy, sincerity, fairness in dealing with pupils, democracy and courtesy in relation with pupils good disposition and consistent behaviour; flexibility in opinions, beliefs and attitudes, a good sense of humour, and width of interests, are often mentioned in various studies on the subject.
On the other hand, the undesirable qualities or traits are bad temper, intolerance, unreasonableness in demands, tendency to be gloomy and unfriendly, sarcasm and the tendency to use ridicule, tendency to talk excessively and to talk down to pupils, apathy, rigidity of procedure and perfectionistic attitudes.
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The professional qualities which are conducive to the mental health goals in education are the good knowledge of subject matter in which he has specialised capacity and willingness to teach effectively and mastery if communication skills, ability and desire to improve professional skills, achieve competence through the study of professional books and magazines, ability to work together and to share experience with others, acceptance and understanding of children, realistic perception of the social expectations and an understanding of his social role as well as respect for oneself and one’s profession.
It must be noted that the mental health of the teacher, reflected in these personal and professional qualities depends on various factors including his personal striving, other factors being his upbringing, educational, and culture. This means the mental health of the teacher is closely associated with the mental health of his family community and socioeconomic and cultural conditions that obtain in the latter. This loads us to the discussion of some “possible hazards” to his mental health.
These are his personality factors or difficulties resulting from biological or early environmental influences, in sufficient preparation for teaching, unhygienic supervision, insufficient and substandard salary, other economic difficulties in terms of uncertain tenure, overcrowded classes, heavy work load, particularly in primary classes, undesirable community attitudes amounting to lack of status and appreciations, lack of purpose or purposes in-education, greater attention to minor details of techniques and methodology.
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Another source of tension and anxiety as well as conflict is that he is expected to be an ideal person, a paragon of ascetic-living, possessing all virtues and having no failings. Finding himself all the time under public examinations and scrutiny, he is likely to develop anxiety and tension. Of course one important antidote to these hazards is respect for oneself and one’s profession, which the teacher should develop.
This implies the development of a positive attitude towards profession reviewing and evaluating the advantages of the teaching profession in terms of opportunities for professional achievement, intellectual stimulation and personnel satisfaction is very much needed for mental health.
Regarding the importance of the mental health status of the teacher as a basic factor in mental health of school children, Townsend wants greater attention to be paid to the selection of students to teacher training college. According to him mere “credit gatherers” or those who are merely scholastically high won’t be suitable candidates. Similarly, persons who are lonely, who are in need to friendship, who are victims of worries, emotional up-sets and defects of immaturity or uncongenial home surroundings who have no strong motivation are most clearly unsinted to the work of modern teaching.