Emotions of portuguese teachers: a preliminary approach

Abstract

Human interaction is constantly present in the teaching-learning process. Teachers are responsible for the cognitive development of students as well as their personal and social development. In order to nurture students’ development, teachers live their daily work with an intense, involving and strong emotional energy (e.g. Furu, 2007). Day (2004) suggests that school imposes an intense and extensive emotional activity. Furthermore, the rapid social changes of the recent decades require emotional skills that enable adaptation to the changes and challenges of everyday life. In turn, this adaptation is influenced by the power of emotions (Goleman, 1995) and emphasizes the role of the affective dimension of development in personal, socio-cultural and emotional control as a way to achieve welfare (e,g. Sternberg, Wagner, Williams & Horvath, 1995). Nonetheless, cognitive and affective dimensions have grown apart in many domains, including teaching. However, critical views have become more widespread. For example, Adams (1970) drew attention to the internal world of teachers and Combs (Combs, 1972; Combs et al., 1974) proposed a revolution in teacher education diverting it from the acquisition of behaviours and making it dependent on the person of the teacher, who acts with emotional security and based on a certain system of beliefs. During the eighties, there was an increased interest in the emotional dimensions of the life of teachers, exemplified by the research on well-being, stress, burnout, reality shock and the stages of professional development of teachers. According to Huberman (1989), the feeling of initial social and personal satisfaction disappears and at the end of the career, there is often a disinvestment and a reserved or bitter emotional distance from the students. The perspective that emphasizes the affective dimension of education stresses the intense personal interactions that require teachers to exercise emotional control due to the responsibility they have in the development of their students (Nias, 1996). More than just a medium, human relations become an integral part of engagement in learning and development for all its participants. In this sense, teachers’ emotions determine the adaptation to challenges in educational contexts and can be used to regulate teaching and learning and solve critical incidents within the classroom. The concern about the emotional dimension in this context raises a number of issues relating to how the teachers integrate the emotions in the debate about the practice. In the present research we specify the following questions: Which are the feelings that teachers experience in their relationship with students at a school? What situations trigger them? How do teachers manage feelings and emotions in the teaching process? Which feelings and emotions act as regulators within the classroom? Are teachers aware that this regulation?