Browsing by Subject "pedagoginen tahdikkuus"

This study examined teachers’ narratives of teacher sensitivity. The purpose was to find out what kind of situations requiring sensitivity teachers have encountered and what kind of sensitive ways of working teachers had. Situations and practices are highlighted to support student well-being, as previous research literature has shown that every act or omission of a teacher has an impact on the student. Pedagogical sensitivity is also seen as the heart of teaching. The study was based on narrative research. The data collection method was a semi-structured thematic interview. The study group was eight classroom teachers working in the area of Jyväskylä. The research data was analyzed through narrative methods. The division into analysis of narratives and narrative analysis served as a guideline in this study. Analysis of narratives was used to thematize and classify situations and practices that require sensitivity. The narrative analysis served as a tool when creating a new narrative of the data, the widest possible type of narrative on situations requiring the teachers’ sensitivity and the procedures they use in these situations. Teachers described a wide variety of situations that required sensitivity on the part of the teacher. Out-of-school issues were given more emphasis and included, most importantly, students’ personal matters and backgrounds, which were often subject to confidentiality or otherwise sensitive matters. The teacher had to be able to act sensitively when students behaved differently or experienced large and often negative emotions due to either conflicts between students or tangles in students’ personal lives. Issues related to schoolwork were primarily the emergence of students’ different skills in learning situations and the challenges they face in schoolwork. Listening and discussing things with the students was one of the most important sensitive ways of doing things. This provided background information about the situation, which allowed teachers to take the necessary action. Teachers had to able to stop at critical moments and change their own lesson plan to deal with the situation. Depending on the seriousness if the situation, parents or other authorities were contacted. The events of the student’s personal life had to be able to be taken into account as factors influencing the student’s activities and behavior. Situations that require sensitivity are often very sensitive by nature and a teacher’s sensitive activities require good student knowledge. A sensitive teacher is able to assess how to act in the best interests of the student in each situation.