A survey by Peking University pointed out that
the occupational load and health status of middle-aged college teachers need urgent attention
◎Reporter Zhang Galun
College teachers, a legendary "ideal profession": there are winter and summer vacations, and there is no need to commute to and from get off work.
But the reality is not so.
College teachers are actually a very challenging and high-pressure profession. They need to pursue excellence and innovation through long-term investment and dedication under complex and unpredictable conditions.
Recently, the School of Education of Peking University and the Department of Medicine have completed a survey of teachers in the Department of Medicine of a double-first-class construction university using the data on the academic occupational load and health examinations of teachers held by the university's teacher management department, supplemented by interviews with teachers.
They tried to answer a preliminary question-what is eroding the health of college teachers?
Multiple occupational loads have led to a significant increase in the incidence of disease among college teachers
"The overall physical health status of college teachers is not optimistic. Multiple occupational loads have a significant impact on their physiological disease detection rate." During the Fourth Five-Year Plan period, at the seminar on building a powerful country in higher education, the research leader and researcher Bao Wei of the School of Education of Peking University shared their findings.
Previously, domestic studies have pointed out that the abnormal rate of college teachers’ physical examination is as high as 90%, and the proportion of sub-health status is close to 70%.
Teachers do not live in pure white ivory towers, and they cannot concentrate on academics and educating people without distraction.
Some professors admitted in interviews that as long as they do not retire, they will always face the pressure of assessment.
Moreover, the inherent responsibility of the profession of teachers also drives them to voluntarily extend their working hours, so that they are in a state of lack of rest and mental exhaustion for a long time.
All of this has significantly increased the professional load of teachers.
Working hours is one of the quantitative indicators describing occupational load.
The survey in 2014 showed that the average time spent on teaching, scientific research, and service by college teachers in my country is 45 hours per week, which is 5 hours more than similar survey results in 2007. Research-oriented universities represented by "985" and "211" engineering universities The average working time of university teachers is 45.8 hours per week.
Many college teachers also told reporters of Science and Technology Daily that they have no weekends or holidays.
The so-called winter and summer vacations are just days when you can calm down and do scientific research.
From a medical point of view, chronic stress caused by occupational load can cause dysfunctions in the nervous system, endocrine system, immune system, metabolic system, and cardiovascular system, and occupational load may also cause a significant increase in the incidence of tumor diseases.
The sample size of the Bowie team's research is not large, but some problems can be seen from it.
They explored the impact of occupational load such as talent training, scientific research, and departmental services on the detection of various abnormal indicators of teachers' health.
The results show that the postgraduate guidance work undertaken by teachers, that is, the increase in the number of doctoral students and master students, may also cause a significant increase in the detection rate of hyperglycemia.
As far as scientific research is concerned, the increase in the number of scientific research projects presided over by teachers and the number of published papers have a significant positive impact on the abnormal detection rates of hyperglycemia and hypertension respectively.
How do students become a source of stress for teachers?
After interviews with teachers, Bao Wei learned that in recent years, with the rapid expansion of graduate student enrollment, the academic foundation and academic interests of master and doctoral students have declined.
How to help students with uneven quality to improve their academic level has become one of the professional burdens of college teachers.
Occupational load has a greater impact on middle-generation teachers and female teachers
These findings also aroused the team's attention to the health status of the Mesozoic and senior teachers.
The society often pays attention to the economic pressure and mental pressure of young teachers, but the number of graduate students guided by the Mesozoic teachers, the number of scientific research projects presided over, and the service work undertaken by the colleges and departments are relatively more.
Moreover, they are not young anymore, and their bodies are more likely to send out various warning signals.
"The negative impact of occupational load on teachers' health is highlighted by the middle-aged generation teachers and senior teachers over 41 years old." Bao Wei said.
The Mesozoic and senior teachers are the mainstays of academic production, and they often serve as journal reviewers and public policy consultants.
These people are usually leaders in the subject field, they have to lead the team, point out the direction, and also strive for key academic resources for the subject.
It can be said that Mesozoic teachers and senior teachers are still running on the "fast track" after entering the mid-career.
They still need to maintain high-quality, high-frequency academic output, while also undertaking a lot of other tasks.
"Middle-aged teachers not only have the most prominent job burnout, but they also often fall into serious illnesses due to occupational overload. The occupational overload and health crisis of teachers in the middle and late stages of their careers urgently require the attention of the academic community." Bao Wei Express.
Another group that needs to be taken seriously is female teachers.
Quantitative analysis shows that the related workload of guiding graduate students is more likely to endanger the health of female teachers, especially young and middle-aged female teachers.
This may be related to the fact that female teachers are more likely to empathize with students.
"Female teachers are more delicate and sensitive." Bowie said, female teachers may invest more energy and emotion in student training, and they are more likely to have a psychological burden in the face of students with weak academic foundations, especially mental health crisis.
In fact, compared with their male counterparts, female teachers are not only obviously inadequate in terms of discourse power, development rights, social prestige and resource sharing, but also mentally and psychologically inferior.
Bowie suggested that a support system for the physical and mental health of teachers should be established, focusing on the health and physiological indicators of high-risk groups such as Mesozoic teachers and female teachers.
"A high-quality faculty will have a high-quality education." Bao Wei said that an excellent and healthy faculty is an important cornerstone for the development of talent training, scientific research, and social services in institutions of higher learning.
This time, the researchers set their sights on the college teachers themselves, paying attention to the "simple" topic of their physical health, and also hope that more people will pay attention to the professional load of teachers and their health crisis.