Albania’s Private School Teachers and their Stresses

Education at private school experienced a new development after 90s as it was considered a prohibited phenomenon for approximately 50 years in Albania. This education model challenged not only the novice teachers but the more experienced ones as well. Teachers were faced with performance challenges either while with their students (in this case being the finance provider), also in front of their school leaders and educational authorities, such as Educational Directorates, who demanded standards and requirements to be accomplished by schools as well as respectively by them. While in the process of teaching an anxious teaching has some negative effects for its performance. There are some considerable evidences (Parsons, 1973, b) that anxiety can hinder the multitask performance. According to Bernstein (1983: 5), the teaching anxiety can hinder the teaching efficiency in the class, including the best or talented ones. But the teaching anxiety is not identified as disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders published by the American Psychiatric Association. The expose before the class, public speech before the class and parents alike at open meetings causes stress to novice teachers but it is also a challenge for the more experiences ones when there are challenging students with a developed intelligence in the class, as well as facing parents who require high standards for their children and their children’s teachers. There are three aspects as a source of anxiety during teaching experiences: 1) Activities related to teaching prearrangement, 2) In front of students (teaching process) and 3) class placement interaction. (Gardner and Leak (1994). As a conclusion of this study it can be stated that anxiety is “a normal part of teacher’s development and for this reason it is accepted as a natural element of transition from a novice teacher to a more qualified.†(Harvey). The teaching anxiety, i defined as a transitional characteristic of teaching situation. It is an emotional form that is subject to change in its intensity and may disappear over growing experience.