Why Mental Health Teachers Can't Be "Professional and Professional"
In the 2022 work points recently released by the Ministry of Education, it is proposed to strengthen and improve student mental health education, implement student mental health promotion plans, and do scientific identification, real-time early warning, professional consultation and proper response.
There are traces of the importance attached to the management of students' mental health.
In 2021, the "Notice on Strengthening the Management of Students' Mental Health" issued by the Ministry of Education clearly requires that each primary and secondary school should be equipped with at least one full-time mental health education teacher, and county-level teaching and research institutions should be equipped with psychological teaching and research staff.
However, the reporter's investigation found that at present, mental health teachers in primary and secondary schools in my country still face problems such as a large overall shortage of full-time teachers, serious part-time jobs, and a lack of evaluation mechanisms.
Professional mental health teachers are "hard to find" and "can't find"
Liu Jia, a primary school student in Wuhan, was suspected of stealing a newly bought pen at the same table.
In the face of unprovoked criticism from classmates, Liu Jia was speechless and struggled for a long time, and finally made up her mind to talk to a psychology teacher.
When Liu Jia arrived at the door, she found that the door of the school's psychological counseling room was closed.
Similar to Liu Jia's experience, some students encountered psychological problems, but mental health teachers were "hard to find" and "can't find".
A middle school in Shandong has 73 teaching classes with nearly 3,000 students. According to the document, every 10 teaching classes are equipped with 1 full-time and part-time psychology teacher. The school has 8 teachers, but currently there are only 3 teachers.
"Even with this kind of equipment, it is considered a luxurious lineup in the local area." Zeng Hua, a full-time mental health teacher at the school, said frankly.
"Some people say that full-time jobs are not enough for part-time jobs. Due to the high professional requirements for psychology teachers, it is difficult to find matching part-time teachers. Besides, normal teaching is currently guaranteed for fixed positions and there are no suitable part-time candidates." Zeng Hua Say.
The reporter's investigation in many places in Hebei Province found that most of the mental health teachers in primary and secondary schools are generally held by the school's ideological and political teachers.
"Due to the limited establishment of schools, the recruitment of mental health teachers is always the smallest among all disciplines. The shortage of full-time mental health teachers has become the norm, and the selection and training of part-time mental health teachers has not been institutionalized." Zeng Hua said.
In the western regions and more remote township schools, the shortage of psychological teachers is even more prominent.
According to media reports, data released by the Education Department of a southwestern province in the middle of last year showed that there were 9,816 mental health teachers in the province, covering 6,957 schools, of which there were only 758 full-time psychological teachers, covering only 563 schools.
In response to the lack of full-time psychological teachers, Guo Cheng, a professor at the Department of Psychology of Southwest University, suggested: "Schools can hire qualified supervisors from outside the school to provide supervision services for mental health teachers."
The daily work is trivial, but it is difficult to be included in the workload assessment
What is the daily work of mental health teachers in primary and secondary schools?
Qi Hongyan is the only full-time mental health teacher in a primary school in Baoding. Her work is mainly divided into three parts: writing a school-based curriculum for mental health; providing one-to-one psychological counseling to students during class breaks; giving students a psychological measurement questionnaire from time to time and statistical analysis.
"At present, we can only reluctantly arrange classes for seventh-grade students, and eighth and ninth-grade students do not have a fixed mental health course." Qi Hongyan said.
On the one hand, the time is full; on the other hand, some trivial work often takes up more than half of the teachers' time and energy, and is not counted in the workload.
Zeng Hua introduced: "If you only teach mental health classes, you will not be able to meet the basic workload requirements, and the school will not be able to offer mental health classes that meet the required number of mental health classes, which all lead to mental health teachers who can only take part-time jobs to make up the workload. Otherwise, there is a risk of under-employment.”
The reporter's investigation found that some schools did not include psychological counseling, psychological lectures, psychological themed activities and other work on the grounds that they were not regularly included in the calculation of class hours, resulting in mental health teachers doing both professional and non-professional work. And in various evaluations, it has always been at a disadvantage.
"A sound mental health education evaluation system is the fundamental guarantee for the long-term development of mental health teachers." In Guo Cheng's view, teaching work and its teaching effects, students' psychological counseling and counseling, and the practical effects of psychological counseling rooms should all be included in the assessment and evaluation. Job title appraisal.
It is difficult to obtain professional titles and it is easy to cause job burnout
Li Xiaomin, a mental health teacher from a primary school in Changchun, found out when filling in the information, "In the evaluation of professional titles, there is no option for mental health education teachers in the relevant application materials."
The Ministry of Education has issued documents many times, stipulating that mental health teachers should enjoy the same treatment as class teachers.
In 2012, the Ministry of Education promulgated the "Guiding Outline of Psychological Health Education in Primary and Secondary Schools (Revised in 2012)", which stipulates that local education administrative departments should improve the evaluation and appointment methods for the positions (titles) of mental health education teachers in primary and secondary schools, and formulate corresponding professional and technical positions ( professional title) evaluation standards, and implement the evaluation and employment of mental health education teachers' positions (professional title).
Ma Chengru, a mental health teacher from a primary school in Shandong, told reporters that compared with main subject teachers and class teachers, it is much more difficult for mental health teachers to evaluate professional titles, and the relevant regulations are "basically impossible to achieve".
"Schools are more inclined to major subject teachers and head teachers when evaluating professional titles, but they do not allow mental health teachers to serve as head teachers. The school leaders explained that mental health teachers serve all students in the school. Being a head teacher will affect the allocation of energy, but mental health Teachers are also assigned to perform additional administrative work, which shows that this is not the key reason." Ma Chengru said.
The evaluation of professional titles often requires the participants to have a certain number of years as a class teacher, and mental health teachers have basically no chance to be a class teacher due to the characteristics of their disciplines.
This embarrassing situation makes the development and promotion of full-time mental health teachers difficult.
Guo Cheng believes: "It is difficult to obtain professional titles, and it is easy to cause job burnout."
Guo Cheng suggested: "Teachers can't be treated unequally, not to mention that mental health teachers still have a lot of hidden work to do. Mental health is a subject that keeps pace with the times, and a wide range of knowledge will increase teachers' experience, which will help them deal with Psychological problems can be more at ease, and opportunities and funds should be provided to support teachers’ training and development.”
(A pseudonym is used in this article)
(Our reporter Chen Peng, our correspondent Han Ziping)