Abstract
Who are teachers? What do teachers do and who, or what influences them? Equally important is, what do teachers feel and who, or what influences their feeling? Due to the tightly controlled nature of teachers’ work, they are expected to follow practice blindly diminishing the emotional implications of the role. Acting, thinking and feeling are intimately enmeshed, and teachers navigate their work within a set of implied emotional rules that may be at odds with what a teacher may naturally feel. A collection of teacher emotional rules emerged from an action research project, which was also a narrative inquiry, researching teachers’ emotional awareness and reflective practices. Six teachers from a Victorian Government secondary school came together over a year to share and inquire into their stories of teachers’ day-to-day work. Each teacher’s story featured a struggle that stems from the difficulty, yet the desire, to abide by institutionally derived emotional rules. Teachers live and work in tension and negotiating this tension is a struggle, but reflective practice, which is an essential aspect of teachers’ self-understanding, can assist in uncovering the hidden emotional strain.
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Hopman, J. (2019). Teacher Emotional Rules. In: Gutierrez, A., Fox, J., Alexander, C. (eds) Professionalism and Teacher Education. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-7002-1_8
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