Abstract

Objectives The purposes of this study were to explore the changes of teacher’s experiences writing reflective emotion journals and the meaning of it in the contexts of early childhood education and care.
 Methods In this qualitative study, nine early childhood teachers participated in a course of the graduate school during 15 weeks, and at this time they submitted 10 journals and participated in the group discussion, group interviews.
 Results Two major themes along with multiple sub-themes were identifies including: First, the teacher's emotional journal writing experience changed from ‘unfamiliarity, difficult start’ to write down with focusing on the teacher's emotions in early childhood education to ‘objectively facing one's emotions,’ ‘discovering positive emotions, savoring them’, ‘viewing the classroom space as a living world’, and ‘considering teacher emotion in detail’. Second, the meaning of the experience of writing emotional journals to teachers can be summarized as ‘the journey to get to know me’, ‘time to empathize and comfort’, ‘the process of transferring the virtuous cycle’, and ‘time of growth’.
 Conclusions In conclusion, It is expected that it will be possible to find ways to support teachers' healthy emotional experiences in the early childhood education field while awakening the importance of teacher emotions in the early childhood teacher education program and presenting directions in terms of applying the value and meaning of teachers' emotional journal writing.

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