A Participatory Investigation of the Role of Emotions in Pedagogical Decision Making of Elementary Teachers of the Deaf
Open Access DepositedIt is hardly revolutionary to state that teaching is an emotion-filled occupation. The emotional life of teachers has been well-covered in the literature in terms of describing the causes, conditions and impact of teachers’ emotional experiences in the context of their classrooms. With few exceptions, the investigations into teacher emotions stop there. This participatory project builds on that body of research to create a teacher work group designed specifically for the purpose of engaging with emotions as a pedagogical tool and as a source of rich wisdom and resources for making pedagogical decisions. The aim of this collaborative work, located at a small school for the Deaf in the United States, is to move the discussion of teacher emotions beyond naming and managing emotions and towards utilizing emotions as prompts to action and sources of insight. Although the workgroup sessions were brief and plagued by all of the common interruptions characteristic of life in the K-12 education setting in the United States, the mix of whole group and individual sessions provided illumination into the ways teachers engage with their emotions to the benefit of their teaching practice and their relationships with students. When those same teacher emotions are considered within the larger context of the school for the Deaf situated in the United States, they provide further insight into the structures and histories that form Deaf Education.
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