Human Relationships in Schools and Teachers\u27 Mental Health

The teacher\u27s mental health is said to be in a critical condition in Japan. We investigated the issue of the human relationships among teachers in schools and the effect of them on the teacher\u27s mental health. We used the random sampling of elementary and junior high school teachers in Nagano Prefecture in 1999. The analysis of the data revealed that 89.8% of the teachers felt vain and tired from their daily work at school. They want to entertain their works in the context of their tasks as the autonomous profession, while they are forced to cooperate with their colleagues and keep step with the school policies such as school objectives, curriculum construction and school rules. Teachers tend to worry about the achievement in their own classes by comparing with those in the other colleagues\u27 classes. We offer explanations for the findings and discuss implications for the management in the school settings