THE INFLUENCE OF EDUCATIONAL ENVIRONMENT ON STUDENTS' STRESS TOLERANCE

ВЛИЯНИЕ УЧЕБНОЙ СРЕДЫ НА СТРЕССОУСТОЙЧИВОСТЬ ОБУЧАЮЩИХСЯ

Горбатовская Юлия Александровна

студент педагогического института, Белгородский государственный национальный исследовательский университет, РФ, г. Белгород

Марков Александр Владимирович

научный руководитель, старший преподаватель кафедры иностранных языков, Белгородский государственный национальный исследовательский университет, РФ, г. Белгород

ABSTRACT

This article considers stress resistance of students as a factor influencing the process of knowledge acquisition and formation of a healthy nation.

АННОТАЦИЯ

В данной статье рассматривается стрессоустойчивость обучающихся как фактор, влияющий на процесс получение знаний и формирование здоровой нации.

Keywords: teacher, stress, stress resistance of students, educational environment.

Ключевые слова: педагог, стресс, стрессоустойчивость обучающихся, учебная среда.

Everyone experiences stress at one time or another, and the reasons for this can be very different. Undoubtedly, in small amounts, stress has a positive value because, for example, it helps to energise thinking. However, otherwise, when the body has little or no ability to get out of a stressful state, there are unfavourable consequences such as health problems.

People cope with stress in different ways due to their individuality: some people may feel anxious because of insignificant trifles, while others try to show resilience even in desperate situations. It is obvious that in the educational environment it is the teacher who first notices such a phenomenon and can significantly influence the change, namely the increase or decrease of students' stress tolerance.

It is important to note that one of the main factors affecting students' stress tolerance is teachers' teaching style. Thus, the most stress factors occur if a teacher uses authoritarian teaching style, which negatively affects the mental health of students.  Authoritarian style provides for strict control, excessive demanding, because of which students are in a tense atmosphere most of the time. This leads to constant anxiety in students, which tends to develop into stress. Not surprisingly, there are also statistics on student morbidity, confirming frequent health problems among students due to authoritarian teaching style [1].

The opposite of the authoritarian teaching style is the democratic one, which is based on love for pupils. In this case, the teacher shows benevolence, does not look at children as his subordinates, and thanks to this the students themselves begin to strive for self-improvement, and the teacher becomes a role model in their eyes. Such interaction minimises anxiety and conflict situations, providing a calm microclimate for learning.

Another well-known teaching style is the liberal (permissive) style, which represents the teacher's disinterest in the pupils' progress. Because of this style of apparent indifference, students have many doubts about their abilities, and some students even begin to feel like failures. The result is unwanted stress.

Undoubtedly, in practice, teachers use a mixed style of teaching. Let us assume that the authoritarian style is quite demanding in itself, but it is effective when working with students prone to disorganisation and deviant behaviour, of course, not without reliance on the democratic style of teaching. It is important to realise that the teaching style chosen by a teacher has an impact on the formation of students' personality, so if a person's learning environment is initially associated with stress, it may affect his/her future and attitude to education.

In addition, the occurrence of stress is related to the conditions of the educational environment. For example, there are such educational stressors as organisational, personal and pedagogical:

1. Organisational stressors are related to the peculiarities of learning activities. It can be a strong learning load, which becomes unbearable for students, which leads to failure and growing state of anxiety;

2. The personal component of educational stressors is determined by the attitude of a student himself/herself to learning activity, which changes due to difficulties arising in communication with other people. In other words, manifestations of depressive state caused by life problems entail neglecting the process of education;

3. Pedagogical learning stressors have a close connection with the moral and psychological climate of the team. It can be bullying, fear of losing leadership or not mastering the teaching material and similar, which brings a wave of tension [2].

Let us pay attention to the classification of types of stress depending on the possibility to influence it:

• stresses that are beyond our control;
• stresses that can be influenced;
• stresses as figments of our imagination [3].

Stresses that occur in the educational environment are mostly of the second type, therefore, teachers are able to minimise this kind of problem. After all, if we do not pay attention to the peculiarities of students' perception, then, unfortunately, they may develop not the most correct ways of coping with stress: conflict, smoking, alcohol consumption, withdrawal, degradation and similar. As a result, students close the door to their own future.

Sometimes it happens that the teacher is the only one who can help to understand not only academic but also personal problems. For this purpose, the teacher should have professional competence and high psychological culture, which means the ability to independently solve complex life problems and help students to cope with problems, for example, to give sound advice, to serve as a support. Without this, a teacher cannot provide correct psychological and pedagogical assistance [4]. This is characteristic of those teachers who are respected by students. In case of neglecting the individuality of students and their attitude to difficulties, stress resistance of students can significantly decrease.

Thus, stress in the learning environment is an urgent problem of our time. If we pay attention to it in time, there is an opportunity to help students who are dissatisfied with their abilities and unfairness of other people's attitude towards them. A special role in this case belongs to the teacher.