The Emotional Experiences Of Three Early Childhood Teachers during Difficult Parent-teacher Conferences: an Analysis Of Care Strategies In Response To These Emotions
Open Access
- Author:
- Mccoy, Karen Louise
- Graduate Program:
- Curriculum and Instruction
- Degree:
- Doctor of Education
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- October 29, 2012
- Committee Members:
- Patricia Ann Jennings, Dissertation Advisor/Co-Advisor
James Ewald Johnson, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
James F Nolan Jr., Committee Member
Maryellen Schaub, Committee Member - Keywords:
- mindfulness
parent-teacher conferences
CARE
empathy - Abstract:
- Using case study design with a semi-structured interview approach and diary journal entries, my research study seeks to describe the emotional experiences of three inner-city, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania early childhood teachers during a difficult parent-teacher conference. Teachers’ anxiety caused by confrontational parental interactions is one of the three most highly ranked areas of negative emotional tensions for beginning teachers (Barrett Kutcy & Schulz, 2006). The year prior to this study, the three teachers participated in a year-long professional development program. Cultivating Awareness and Resilience in Education (CARE) was created to provide teachers with mindfulness strategies that may enable them to experience stressful classroom situations with an attitude of curiosity, openness, and acceptance of themselves, others, and the situation. This study investigates if these teachers, who self-reported that they used CARE strategies in their classroom during the fall of 2011, relied on any of the strategies during what they predicted and described as a difficult parent-teacher conference in February of 2012. As evidenced through the three teacher’s description of their thinking and feelings prior to the anticipated difficult parent-teacher conference, teachers experienced stress. In addition, each teacher spoke of exchanges with the parent during the conference in which they felt stressed or angry. The consistent response to these emotions was the teachers’ recognition of what she was feeling and the utilization of deep breathing, a strategy they learned and attributed to their CARE training. In these three cases, teachers’ judgments about the parenting decisions they witnessed were consistent. All three teachers spoke about how differently they would respond to the child if they were the parent; all believing that their approach would have been more appropriate in obtaining the desired behavior from the child. Although unsolicited, the teachers voluntarily spoke about how different their parents were in comparison to the parents sitting across from them during the conference. Listening to these judgments about parents, it appears that one of the goals of CARE may not have been realized. Specifically, CARE strategies were designed to develop within the teachers a sense of acceptance of others. Based upon the teacher’s critical comments about parents, this acceptance was not evident. Thus, I was unable to assert that the teachers expressed empathy and compassion towards the parents.