TASK 1 : ACADEMIC WRITING

Emotional disturbance as defined by IDEA (n.d.) is a condition exhibiting one or more

of the following characteristics over a long period of time and to a marked degree that
adversely affects a persons performance. Emotional disturbances are a normal phenomenon
happens among humans especially of those facing hardships, problems and pressure in their
daily life. Every so often we heard of emotional disturbances among teenagers as they are
undergoing a turning point where they started looking for their identity. Thus, we had
forgotten to look upon the teachers whom also face the same problems of a different level.
Teaching as defined by Gage (1962) is a form of interpersonal influence aimed at
changing the behavior potential of another person. Seeing the definition itself, we know how
important a role of a teacher is and how much responsibility they carry not only to become a
role model but also to shape a students personality and keeping them in the right track. With
that being the focus of their responsibility, the workload these days had also starting to hit
most of them as teachers are trying to cope with the changes of both curriculum and time as
well seeing that the generation nowadays are of big difference compared to how it was in the
past. As mentioned by Elmore, with each new generation, the time becomes more valuable,
expectation of convenience and service rises, the demand for work to have meaning
intensifies, the hunger for options grows, the sense of entitlement increases, the need for
speed and space goes up and the desire for customization expands.
We have heard of cases where teachers who ended up in a mental institution as they
failed to stabilize their emotions and the worst cases we had heard had led several teachers
through death. In one of the Kosmo news, Afzan (n.d.) wrote a story of a teacher who ended
up getting treatments in a psychiatric hospital due to stress and workloads; let it be in school
and at home. Based on the psychiatric hospital themselves, every year they would receive
about 22 000 patients and 10% of them are usually teachers. Another case written by Binns
(2011) for Metro news, an English teacher that was overburdened with stress due to his job
died of a heart attack at the age of 37. Looking upon these cases, one of the issues raised
was the heavy workload pressure, trying to rush for deadlines in completing and meeting the
requirements of their job scope that were given by the government. Having to balance both
teaching and updating datas of self, schools and students, some teachers ended up losing
themselves as they failed to manage their emotions and priorities.
Knowing how KSSR works, teachers had undergone hectic processes in order to
realize the new curriculum. We have heard and had seen how several teachers had to push

themselves to their limit as they needed to meet and implement the curriculum among their
students. Adapting changes is not an easy thing for teachers as big changes has to be made
and new objectives have to be achieved in order to make the new curriculum successful. On
12 August, Sofian (2016) posted an article for Utusan Online mentioning that new curriculum
will be introduced. Teachers might find it difficult to cope as they had just finished one cycle
of KSSR and now a new one will be implemented as they were about to cope. As teachers
needs to adapt to a lot of changes and had to cope with it, teachers will find themselves too
occupied with their workload when a teachers focus should be on teaching their students.
Every so often we have heard of teachers saying that they are pushed to cope with
the new system and ended up neglecting their students as they are expected to complete
their work before the higher ups pays a visit. When this happens, students education is not
put as a priority and their level of education could not be focused on as teachers had to
focus on their work as well. Due to this, teachers would be lacking of time to monitor each
student and assists those who need help. As a result, it will bring down the reputation of the
school due to this problem.
Not only that, teachers will eventually grew exhausted having to rush and meet
certain expectations and dates while being pressured with more workloads and projects. As
the stress builds up, teachers will go home and might let out the stress on their family by the
end of the day. If not, teacher will end up bringing the work with them, causing them to have
lesser time to spend with their family. When problems build up in their family due to this, the
motivations and mood will be brought to school and their performance would be down. Once
this happens, the relationships among their co-workers and students would not be good as
they would be too focused with the current emotional state that they are in. Some could
distinguish between personal problems and their work, some does not.
As stated by Smollin (2011), teacher burnout is one of the reasons why a teacher
turnover is on the rise. This is due to the works given and expectations the community has
around them to not only bring up the students grades but the performance of the school as
well. Teachers will need to sacrifice their time and work extended hours to meet this
expectation. Due to this, some teachers find themselves burnout and call it quits on their job.
Sadly, those who quits are some of those who are really good in their teaching. Thus, not
only it would be a loss to the school, it would also bring more workloads towards their
colleagues as they would need to fill in another persons job until they could finally get a
replacement.
Dealing with emotional disturbances among the teachers would be a good step than
not only we could take for ourselves but for our colleagues when we know they needed it.

When we see that our colleagues are at a breaking loose handling too much work at once,
giving a helping hand would make the work goes easier than expected. After all, the heads in
school should work together as one in order to keep the school and the students at their best
performance without neglecting any important responsibilities that they are needed to carry
out. The school itself should try to distribute works evenly among the teachers to ensure that
all work meets its deadline with a fine quality.
The community should also play a big role in this by giving a helping hand to the
teachers as well. Every so often we heard that some parents did not give their cooperation
towards the schools when it comes to their children. At times, parents expected so much
from a teacher over things that teachers would not be able to achieve by themselves. For
example, at times parents solely depended on teachers to raise the students grede and to
teach them to become a person with a great attitude. It would be of more help if both,
schools and the parents help in shaping the students to become better, let it be in school or
at home.
The most important thing is to try to handle this emotional disturbance starting from
ourselves as no one could help and would understand ourselves better than ourselves. Pillar
(2014), suggested the six steps to help handling emotional disturbances in ourselves. One of
the suggestions is called sfumato which is an Italian word for going up in smoke. From this
phrase, we could tell that one of the steps to handle emotional disturbances is by letting it go.
Not only that one should learn to let go of their problem instead of keeping them inside for
too long but one should also learn to let go of things that are left undone. Leaving things
undone would not really be a good thing but we know that at times we would reach a point
where we know we had done our best and we could not do any better than that.
The second suggestion is to have self-balance. Pillar (2014) mentioned that in yoga,
those lithe bodies in stretching poses are beautiful to behold, yet the beauty stems from a
tension of opposites. In yoga, muscles compromise to support others, meaning that balance
is not a matter of symmetry as much as support. From that, we should learn to balance
things out from ourselves with the people outside, with the community. As mentioned before,
we should not hold ourselves back from trying to reach out to the people when we needed to.
The third suggestion is to also think about yourself and know your limits. No one was
made perfect and everyone is bound to make mistakes. Humans are born with limits. Thus, it
would not be selfish to say no every once in a while. Indeed, at times the school wishes us to
achieve something good for the school but at times those would be off your limitations and
skills to do such things. Perhaps saying no would be a good way to avoid emotional

disturbances and try to suggest another way that does not go beyond your limit that could
still bring an impact towards the school and the students.
Ensuring to keep good relationships is another suggestion given. No matter who it is,
connections and the relationships we have with people are always important, especially with
our friends and family. We have to keep in mind that friends and family are not there to just
listen but to support as well. Giving some time away from work with them in order to recharge
and revitalize your motivation would be good to ensure that you could come back energized
and could give your very best at your work once more. Spending time with friends and family
could always open up opportunity and ideas on new interesting ways to teach the students
and handling work at the same time.
The fifth suggestion is show gratitude towards the things that we have and had
happen to ourselves. Every so often we forgot of how hard it was for us to be here at the spot
where we are in right now. As hardships come, we forgot to be grateful and we forgot how
God had helped and led us to where we are now while there are people struggling to be in
our spot. We should try to give some time for ourselves to think and reflect. Some gratitude
and appreciation should be shown on what and where we are now and think of the
accomplishment of yourself that had brought you this far to survive in the hardship.
The last suggestion is healing and by that, it would mean to let you recover. Everyone
would go through pain and hardships in overcoming problems but not many manage it well.
As we are human, we are bound to stumble and come across things that we could not
handle then later be blamed at of something that is beyond your own capabilities. Let you
heal from those judgements and do the best we could to achieve something that is within our
limit.
In conclusion, teaching is not an easy job and should no longer be seen as the last
option in ones future as the struggle for a teacher to go through is not small than any others.
Teachers should give their best when it comes to work and try to manage themselves and
their time well in order to keep their life balance and to not lose themselves. It is very
important to give time to one self or to support those teachers who had burnout to keep them
back on their feet and to give the best for the school and the students.

REFERENCES

Binns, D. (2014, April 30). Killed by his job: English teacher overburdened with stress dies
of heart attack aged 37. Retrieved August 5, 2016, from Metro:
http://metro.co.uk/2014/04/30/killed-by-his-job-english-teacher-overburdened-withstress-dies-of-heart-attack-aged-37-4714872/
Elmore, T. (2012, February 6). Seven Changes That Affect Every Generation. Retrieved
August 5, 2016, from Growing Leaders: http://growingleaders.com/blog/sevenchanges-that-affect-every-generation/
Pillars, W. (2014, May 20). Six Signs ofand Solutions forTeacher Burnout. Retrieved
August 5, 2016, from Education Week:
http://www.edweek.org/tm/articles/2014/05/20/ctq-pillars-signs-of-solutions-forburnout.html
Siti Nor Afzan Kasiman. (n.d.). Ramai Guru Sakit Jiwa. Retrieved August 5, 2016, from
Kosmo!: http://www.kosmo.com.my/kosmo/content.asp?
y=2009&dt=0322&pub=Kosmo&sec=Rencana_Utama&pg=ru_02.htm
Smollin, M. (2011, August). Five Reasons Teacher Turnover Is on the Rise. Retrieved August
5, 2016, from takepart: http://www.takepart.com/article/2011/08/09/five-reasonsteacher-turnover-rise
Sofian Baharom. (2016, August 12). Kurikulum Baharu Diperkenal. Retrieved August 15,
2016, from Utusan Online: http://www.utusan.com.my/berita/nasional/kurikulumbaharu-diperkenal-1.369482