Teaching and Teacher Education 26 (2010) 616621

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Teaching and Teacher Education

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/tate

Revisiting the teachers lounge: Reections on emotional experience

and teacher identity
Shawna Shapiro*
Middlebury College, Center for Teaching, Learning, and Research, Library 224, Middlebury, VT 05753, USA

a r t i c l e i n f o

a b s t r a c t

Article history:
Received 16 July 2007
Received in revised form
8 October 2008
Accepted 8 September 2009

This essay explores the relationship between emotion and teacher identity, using a framework of
personal experience and published research from a variety of disciplines. The author argues that an
increased awareness of emotional experience serves not only to increase rapport among educators, but
also to counteract the persistent dehumanization of the teaching profession in our current sociopolitical
context. She highlights the work of other educational scholars to suggest various means by which this
awareness can be cultivated in research and teaching practice.
2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords:
Teacher
Identity
Emotion
Reective teaching
Critical

When I chose to take a hiatus from public school teaching to

pursue graduate studies, my primary motivation was personal,
rather than professional. I was concerned that my professional
identity as a middle school teacher had begun to eclipse my personal
identity as a lifelong student. As I entered my third year of teaching, I
began to notice that my priorities had shifteddfrom pleasure reading
and curiosity about current events, toward assignment grading and
pedagogical workshops. My ow of mental energy had been diverted from the realm of ideas toward the world of pragmaticsdthe
what and how of instructional routines. I remember, for instance,
consciously avoiding particular topics in my social studies class, if I
sensed that they would lead us away from the district-mandated
curriculum. And I decreased the amount of creative writing my
students produced in language arts, since that stole time from other
tasks that might have more academic use value. I justied these
decisions as being necessary for the practical needs of students and
the rigorous expectations of our schools stakeholders. I felt a sense
of loss, however, as I shifted priorities. My conversations with a few
veteran teachersdone of whom told me that his top 3 reasons for
teaching are June, July, and Augustdcontributed to my growing
concern that I the more I taught, the less I would want to learn.
I began to sense that the longer I was a teacher, the less I might
feel like a full human being. My professional identity was eclipsing
my humanity.

* Mobile: 1 206 919 6060.

E-mail addresses: shawnashapiro@gmail.com, shapis@u.washington.edu.
0742-051X/$ see front matter 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.tate.2009.09.009

My realization of these changes came in part from the interactions that occurred during lunch breaks in the staff lounge.
Munching aimlessly on baby carrots, I noticed that our conversation
revolved around two main topicsdstudent misbehavior and reality
television. Listening to the chatter about these topics, I began to feel
both irritated and somehow isolated. The source of my broader
discontent, I later realized, was this: We were interacting on a very
limited basis. We had restricted the scope of our conversation to
topics that were safe but shallow. I began to wonder if this limited
interaction might be related somehow to our preconceived notions
of how educators should interactdwhat they should think and talk
about. I came to conclude that my colleagues and I were subject to
a paradigm of constructed teacher identity, which was shaping
our social exchanges. When elements outside this paradigm
emergeddvulnerability, anger, eroticismdthey were treated as
a potential threat to this constructed identity, and were either
passively ignored or actively (albeit diplomatically) hushed.
I believe that emotional identity is fundamental to our understanding of professional identity and the interactions it may
generate or preclude. This essay explores the role of emotion within
a paradigm of constructed teacher identity and suggests ways in
which interaction among teachers can be more fully developed to
cultivate professional growthdnot just as educators, but as
complex, multi-faceted human beings. To begin, I will dene the
concepts of emotional and professional identity as they are
discussed in published scholarship. Then, I will offer examples of
how these notions inuence our identity as teachers. In essence,
these rst two sections of the paper seek to answer the following

S. Shapiro / Teaching and Teacher Education 26 (2010) 616621

questions: Why is emotional identity an important aspect of our work

as teachers? How have particular conceptions of the teaching profession served to limit the expression of this identity? I will then make
the case for an alternative paradigm in which emotional identity is
centralized in our notion of professionalism. I will discuss the key
points of such a paradigm, the reasons that it is necessary, and the
barriers that must be overcome in order to become an integral
aspect of educational practice. The central question addressed in
this latter section is this: What would it mean for emotional identity
to become a central aspect of the teaching profession?
1. Emotional identity and the teaching profession
Professional identity has always been a salient concept for
educators. We see teacher as more than simply a category of
employment: We have chosen this eld and tend to feel that it has
chosen us (e.g. Beijaard, Meijer, & Verloop, 2004). Much of what
drives this notion of identity is our experience in the classroom,
both positive and negative: We share collective memories of
educational triumphs, classroom tensions, anddperhaps most
signicantlyda secret dread of what were not doing right. Surrounded by heated debate on standards, testing, values, literacy,
culture, and other issues, we are often plagued by thoughts of
failure and lack of support (cf. Lasky, 2005). While many discussions of teacher professionalism emphasize the cognitive aspects of
these experiences, it could be argued that the more inuential
factor at work in our professional identity is emotion: It is our
experience of affect which forms the basis for our sense of professional self. As Andy Hargreaves (1998, p. 835) says, simply,
Emotions are at the heart of teaching.
Only recently, however, has this idea been taken up in scholarly
research (Sutton & Wheatley, 2003). Two reviews of research
scholarship on the emotions of teachersdHargreaves (2001) and
Sutton and Wheatley (2003)dfound discussion of a wide range of
emotional experiences in recent decades. When asked about the
positive emotions that guide their work, teachers tend to mention
care, affection, and even love (Acker, 1992; Emmer, 1994; Sutton,
2000). These facets of caring are tied to the passion and excitement
they experience in relation to course content and student learning
(Fried, 1995; Nias, 1989; and Sutton, 2000). When they feel that
they are successful in their work, teachers also experience satisfaction and enjoyment, both in the short-term and in general
(Emmer, 1994; Hargreaves, 1998; and Sutton, 2000). Over time, this
satisfaction produces a sense of pride, both professional and
personal (Huberman, 1993; Lasky, 2000).
What these more afrmative emotions have in common is that
they are largely responses to human relationshipsdwith students,
colleagues, and parents. Ours is a human profession, and in human
relationships do we nd the affective rewards for our work. In her
interviews with teachers, Sue Lasky (2005) conrmed that human
connection is a signicant factor in teachers choice of profession
and long-term job satisfaction, as her interview subjects frequently
mentioned such connection in their discussion of their work. Kate
Eliza OConnor (2008) found in her own research, similarly, that the
notion of human care is both prevalent and multi-faceted in
educators notions of professional identity.1 In other words, it is
both our job and our nature to care and to connect with other
human beings.
Negative emotions are also signicant in teacher identitydperhaps
even more so in a profession where caring is centralizedd
for the very act of caring leaves one open to the possibility of
hurt and disappointment (OConnor, 2008). The most common

Also see Day & Leitch, 2001.

617

negative emotion discussed in recent research is anger, stemming

from students indifference or misbehavior, the absence of support
from ones institution or community, and other obstacles to teacher
efcacy (Emmer, 1994; Hargreaves, 2000; Lasky, 2000; Nias, 1989;
Sutton, 2000). Central to this anger is a sense of powerlessness in
accomplishing educational goals. This powerlessness, in turn, is tied
in with a general anxiety about student achievement, the challenges
of communication with various stakeholders, and ongoing selfevaluation.
Another negative emotion experienced by teachers is loneliness.
The general isolation of teachers into individual classrooms means
that they rarely interact with colleagues enough to receive feedback
on their work (cf. Flinders, 1988). Hence, although much of the
satisfaction teachers experience comes from human relationship,
the extent of interaction that might foster such relationship with
colleagues is likely to be quite limited. Physically, teaching tends to
be isolating, even though psychologically, it is highly relational.
2. Emotional identity and teacher interactions
Although educational research has begun to give more attention
to emotional experiences in recent years, this does not necessarily
translate into greater discussion of these topics among teachers
themselves. In their interviews with teachers and their tutors, Day
and Leitch (2001, p. 414) discovered narratives that were replete
with feelings but also reected a continuing inner debate
between the personal and the professional, the emotional and the
cognitive. (p. 414). Rosemary Sutton (2007) found a strong
tendency among some teachers to regulate their expression of
feelings such as anger and frustration. Liljestrom, Roulston, and
deMarrais (2007), also noted high levels of restraint in teachers
who had come to feel that there was no place for certain
emotions within school settings.
In my own interactions with colleagues, I often felt that the
range of express-able emotions was quite narrow. I often sensed
a tacit expectation to suppress my more negative emotionsdand
some of the positive ones as well. One of my clearest memories of
this suppression was a brief exchange I had with my colleague Beth,
in response to my work with the districts teachers union. As the
union representative, I was given the task of informing my
colleagues about local and state issues and eliciting their feedback
on more controversial upcoming decisions. The only time I could
hold these discussions was during the already-rushed 25-minute
lunch period. At one of our union update sessions, Beth said offhandedly that she didnt care much about an upcoming vote
because she didnt know anything about the issue. I felt myself
growing angry. I hesitated and then decided to tell Beth that her
comment frustrated me because I had indeed been trying to inform
the teachers, but was not feeling successful. The comment was
meant to reect my own sense of failure in communicating effectively, rather than serving as a direct critique of Beth. But she took
my words as a sign that I was offended: she quietly apologized, and
then sat in silence. Several other teachers stared uncomfortably.
Beth sent me an email afterward, telling me how much she
respected my work as a union representative and apologizing for
sounding disinterested. She was absent from lunch the next day,
and two other colleagues commented that they hoped the heated
exchange from the day before had been resolved. I attempted to
explain further what I was feeling, but the teachers at my table
quickly changed the subject.
Although I was gratied that Beth had noticed and responded to
my frustration, I was saddened that our exchange had been interpreted by the group as a narrowly-avoided argument, rather than
an opportunity for self-disclosure. Reecting on the situation a few
weeks later, I realized that it was the rst time I had faced even

618

S. Shapiro / Teaching and Teacher Education 26 (2010) 616621

a shadow of conict with my colleagues. Occasionally, we would

differ in opinions about policies, parents, or administrators, but the
subject was usually dropped if any strong disagreement emerged.
Those teachers who were particularly opinionated, in fact, often
received our subtle (yet indirect) criticism, through quiet
comments and disapproving gestures. Yet I had found it refreshing
somehow to admit openly that I was frustrated in my work. I
wondered if more such admissions might be benecial to our
profession: What other frustrations and fears were buried deep in
our psyches? I began to suspect that heated conversation was, in
fact, exactly what we needed, both as colleagues and as human
beings.
I gradually became aware that along with blatant conict, other
unhappy sentimentsddisappointment, anger, sadnessdwere all
but absent in the interactions I had with my colleagues. One
Monday, Beth received a bouquet of owers during lunch, and her
eyes lled with tears. Assuming the owers were from her
husband, we all made dulcet cooing noises upon their arrival. Redfaced, Beth hesitantly revealed that the owers were actually from
her motherda gift of encouragement after a rough weekend. One
or two of us gently asked Beth what had occurred over the
weekend, but she refused to discuss it, insisting with a tense smile
that it was all over now. For the rest of the afternoon, I kept
remembering those owers and the impenetrable optimism with
which Beth had responded to our concern. Although I certainly
wanted to respect Beths privacy, I wondered if she had been
conditioned to believe that being a teacher carried with it the
expectation that the only permissible persona was a cheerful one,
even if it was a faade.
Later that year, I faced a struggle of my own: stress-induced
insomnia. In the way I addressed this issue with my colleagues, I
submitted to the same unspoken expectations. I mentioned casually that I was having difculty sleeping, but downplayed the
severity of the situation. When my exhaustion and anxiety eventually intensied to a point where I felt that I could not function in
my work, it was the school nurse in whom I chose to conde,
though she hardly knew me. I was relieved at her directness and
empathy, and wished I might have been able to nd such support
among my peers. I was too concerned, however, that they would
react to my troubles with discomfort. I wanted to avoid burdening
my colleagues with my troubles.
I assumed that the social distance between myself and my
colleagues was just a typical workplace phenomenon: We all
probably had people outside school with whom we shared our
deeper emotions. A few other occurrences, however, caused me to
question this simplistic answer and to wonder about our
construction of teacher identity: The occasional use of profanity
by a highly-respected English teacher during staff meetings
continued to cause many teachers to wince visibly. A few female
colleagues teased me when I made a comment implying that I
enjoyed sex with my long-term partner. A male teacher was chided
for drinking homemade ginger ale from a bottle that looked like
beer, and was gently warned about what students might think.
The fear that students might see us drinking alcohol was so severe,
in fact, that some of my colleagues refused to order drinks when we
gathered for Happy Hour at a local restaurant. When asked the
reason for her abstention, one said, What would the kids think if
they saw me drinking a margarita? I remember thinking, They
would think that youre.human. I began to wonder more and
more, Arent we teachers allowed to be human?
I reluctantly came to the conclusion that my colleagues and I had
chosen to relate to one another as educators more than as fellow
human beings. We were allowing an ideal of what teachers should
bedcheerful, self-sacricing, and vice-lessdto dominate our
interactions. We sought to become what I now call the model

teacherda pedagogical whiz who appears pleasant and calm in all

situations and is imminently able to exceed the expectations put
upon her by state, school, parents, and students. The model teacher
has gured it all out: struggles, if they ever existed, are in the past.
In our striving toward this ideal, we tend to disregard or even
hide our own complexities and imperfections; in essence, we
de-humanize ourselves. Collectively, we may complain about the
unrealistic expectations put on teachers by our legislators,
administrators, and parents. Yet we reinforce those expectations by
concealing the parts of ourselves that exist in contradiction.
Displays of anger, sadness, sexuality, or soda container might
disrupt the faade of perfection; hence, we avoid such demonstrations and construct barriers amongst ourselves, instead of
validating our own humanity through more authentic interaction.
3. Origins of the model teacher myth
As early as 1932, Willard Waller was discussing the model
teacher in his Sociology of Teaching. Rather than critiquing this
notion, Waller depicted what he saw as an inevitable distance
between teacher and student, heightened by the perception each
has of the other. Students, he says, can never truly know their
teacher, because they only peer at him or her through institutional bars (pp. 279, 280). This social distance between teacher and
others is necessary, he argued, for the maintenance of institutional
authority, so that education can be effective. Waller admitted fully
that this distance extends beyond the classroom, creating a thin
but impenetrable veil that comes between the teacher and all other
human beings (p. 49). Hence, the model teacher, in Wallers
depiction, is an almost mythical creaturedset apart, distinct within
society, and devoted solely to the cause of pedagogy. It is no wonder
that the expression persists that teachers have eyes in the back of
their heads, for teachers continue to be seen by many as somehow
super-human.
While Waller saw social and emotional distance as inevitable
and even necessary in the educational process, a more recent
educational scholardAndy Hargreavesdhas criticized what he
sees as a Western, masculine ideal of classical professionalism
that ignores the need for close emotional understanding between
teachers, parents, and students (2001, p. 1069). When teachers
attempt to remain clinical and detached in a profession where
caring is a core value, Hargreaves explains, this results in psychological dissonance. Teachers begin to feel that they must choose
between two identitiesdthe competent professional or the caring
pal. Hargreaves argues that professional autonomy and independence along with bureaucratic regulation, often help make the
job of masking and maintaining emotional distance easier
(p. 1069). As a result, teachers deny or hide a large part of their
emotional identity from students. In many cases, they extend this to
their interactions with colleagues as well (Golby, 1996; Sutton &
Wheatley, 2003). With the signicant pressures put on teachers in
modern times to serve a variety of roles and meet ever-higher
expectations, it would seem all the more necessary for teachers to
share their emotional experiences. In most cases, however the
model teacher mythos remains rmly in place.
Feminist scholar Madeleine Grumet (1988) suggests that these
dynamics stem in part from the education professions attempts to
dene itself in relation to other disciplines, such as law and
medicine, which are seen as higher in status and tend to deemphasize emotional identity. To gain similar status, education
tends to imitate the attempts at de-personalization and objectivity
put forth in other professions. This imitation has signicant
consequences, however: [W]hen we attempt to rectify our
humiliating situation by emulating the protectionism and elitism of
the other professions, she explains, we subscribe to patriarchys

S. Shapiro / Teaching and Teacher Education 26 (2010) 616621

contempt for the familiar, for the personal . for us (p. 58 in

Hargreaves, 2001, p. 1069). In a people-centered profession like
teaching, this sort of contempt threatens the very foundations of
our work. To reclaim itself as a uniquely humanist and relationshiporiented profession, then, education cannot ignore the emotion
that undergirds the human connection.
One of the main ways in which emotion plays out in education is
through vulnerability. Martha Nussbaums (2003, p. 12) Upheavals
of Thought describes a unique process of emotional interplay that
happens among imperfect beings who admit their imperfection.
Vulnerability, according to Nussbaum, comes from admitting what
we do not know and cannot control. At times, she says, our
emotions scare us, because we may not know how to predict or
interpret them; hence we seek to suppress those feelings so that we
avoid the appearance of vulnerability. Nussbaum offers an example
whom she names B, whose fear of his own imperfections led to
relationships that were distant and/or conict-laden. As teachers,
we are not often encouraged to display imperfection; we pride
ourselves on exuding characteristics that are more its antitheses:
strength, capability, and authority. In doing so, however, we create
two mutually exclusive identities: one as human and the other as
teacher. This dichotomy can create tremendous tensiondboth
inside and among us. Like B, we can end up exhausted, confused,
and unresponsive to each other as a result of our dichotomous
identities as infallible teacher and fallible human.
4. The need for alternatives
To confront the teacher-human dichotomy, we must emphasize
emotional experience amongst each other and with our students.
Without the honest sharing of emotion within the school
community, bonds of solidarity are difcult to sustain. When we
limit the extent to which we share about the affective aspect of our
experience, we limit the potential for greater cohesiveness.
Philosopher Martin Buber (2002) devoted much of his book
Between Man and Man to describing the ways in which emotion
forges the relationships that are central to the education process.
Buber exhorts us to consider the power of dialogic communion,
which involves our being opened up and drawn in to inter-relationship (p. 91). Such interaction causes both personal and social
transformation, since community allows the world.to become
present to us as a person (p. 88). Through genuine dialogue, he
says, educators can traverse their mental and emotional milieus to
enjoy a heightened sense of empathy and freedom. This experience
then extends into the classroom, as it grounds us further in reality
and allows us to have more complete presence with one another
(p. 97). Such presence is needed if learning is to become a truly
transformative process (Freire, 2000). As Buber (2002, p. 105)
argues, the educators effectiveness lies the ability to communicate . directly to [ones] fellow beings. Teachers must rst practice these skills amongst themselves, however, so that they are
prepared to implement them with students in the classroom to
promote dynamic unity (p. 116).
A second reason that emotional identity is important in our
profession is that emotions are a major component in understanding the Why and How of the educational process. Notions like
learner motivation, performance anxiety, and moral development
are intricately tied to emotional processes. If we ignore the role that
emotion plays in student learning, we limit the breadth of our
understanding of these processes. Only by centralizing emotional
identity will we be able to address the complex set of factors that
impact our work as educators. By maintaining the model teacher
mythos, in contrast, we threaten our professional identity, supplanting open discourse with a conning and unachievable denition of what we are supposed to be. The impossible ideal becomes

619

an obstacle to authentic relationships among educators and with

students. Several steps have been taken to dismantle this ideal by
focusing on emotional identity in research and teaching practices.
5. Emotional identity as research focus
One of the most extensive efforts at prioritizing emotion as an
area of research was an issue of Teaching and Teacher Education
(2005) devoted to emotions, teacher identity, and change. In this
collection, scholars explored the idea that emotion plays a central
role in educators processes of decision-making, professional development, and identity formation (2005). In his discussion of the
various theoretical approaches taken by authors in that issue, T. G.
Reio (2005) suggests one reason that emotion tends to be overlooked
in most educational research: it is notoriously amorphous, and
difcult to pin down. Researchers looking to isolate, categorize, and
analyze discrete phenomena may nd that this complexity represents a barrier to their work. Yet as as M. Zembylas (2003) explains,
this complexity of emotion lends itself to richer scholarly conversations, for emotional experience involves multiple intersections
between mind and body, as well as between personal and social
worlds. The authors in the 2005 issue recognize this complexity, and
invoke various theoretical structuresdsociocultural, psychological,
and discursivedto frame their discussion of emotion. The conclusions drawn from these analyses overlap on several key points: 1)
Emotion is a signicant factor in teachers perceptions, interactions,
and identities in relation to students, colleagues, and other stakeholders. 2) Emotion and professional identity are both dynamic and
interrelated, and they represent a multidisciplinary point of entry
toward understanding teachers behaviors. 3) Tension between
teachers intellectual concerns and their emotional responses
contributes to a sense of powerlessnessdan effect that is relatively
unexplored in research scholarship.
Focusing on emotion offers a means by which to understand
how teachers see themselves, their colleagues, their students, and
the decisions that impact these groups. Alexa Darby (2008)
conrmed this in a recent article describing the tremendous fear
and insecurity one group of teachers faced initially in response to
reform efforts at their school. At rst, these teachers found the
process threatening, but with time, they came to feel that the
reform efforts offered opportunities for new growth and learning.
Before the teachers could truly come to appreciate these benets,
however, they needed an opportunity to express their more
negative emotional responses to the process. This eventual acceptance was due in part to the opportunity teachers had to collaborate
amongst themselves and with consultants. Ultimately, professional
identity and self-understanding were re-structured for these
teachers, through an honest exchange of emotions and ideas.
Michalinos Zembylas (2005) looked at teachers emotions
through a Foucauldian lens, examining the role of institutional
power in teachers emotional identities and the ways that social and
cultural norms restrict the interpretation and expression of
emotional experience. Within academic institutions, he found,
these norms can be enforced to an even greater degree, under the
guise of professionalism: The emotional rules developed in schools
and legitimated through the exercise of power, he explains, are
used to govern teachers by putting limits on their emotional
expressions in order to normalize them.. (p. 123). This leads to
teachers resisting the forms of selfhood they are enjoined to
adopt.to draw and extend boundaries around themselves.[in
response to] institutional demands that they be docile and disciplined. (p. 123). As Zembylas demonstrates, the normalizing forces
operating on teachers are by no means neutral: The ideal teacher
myth comprises a disciplining mechanism, maintaining an impossible expectation that serves to prevent teacher resistance. Teachers

620

S. Shapiro / Teaching and Teacher Education 26 (2010) 616621

confront the myth as they explore their own emotional experiences

within those institutional walls.

6. Emotional identity as teaching practice

For emotional identity to be recognized more saliently in school
settings, it must become an integral part of teaching practice. The
means by which affect can become more prominent in the classroom has only recently become centralized in literature from
teacher educators.
In his recent book Teaching with Emotion: A Postmodern Enactment (2005), Zembylas describes several paths toward the
emotional redenition he advocates. He focuses on science
education, which he names as an area in which emotion is rarely
acknowledged. In an ethnographic study with an early childhood
science teacher named Catherine, Zembylas measured and categorized the emotional labordboth positive and negativedengaged in various situations. He calls this approach
a genealogy of emotions in teaching, and recommends that other
teachers engage in a similar process of articulation. Zembylas also
encourages teachers to utilize an emotion diary, in which they
describe their emotional experiences and answer a number of
related prompts, paying particular attention to the causes for the
emotion and their own bodily responses. Zembylass book includes
a template for this diary, as well as the protocol for a metaemotion interview, of the sort he has conducted in his research.
Andy Hargreaves (2001) describes another method by which
emotional identity can be explored, using what he calls emotional
geographies. By mapping their emotional experiences and social
relationships, he explains, teachers come to understand both
themselves and their professional culture. Hargreaves exemplies
this sort of analysis using teacher commentary about the challenges
of communicating with parents, and identies emotional themes
that emerge from the data. McDermott (2002) uses a project called
identity collage, which gives teachers the opportunity to represent their inner worlds in concrete and creative ways. To encourage
authentic dialogue, some schools have established Critical Friends
Groups, where teachers are encouraged to see themselves as
learners and to share openly about their classroom experiences (cf.
Bambino, 2002).
In my own teacher training classes, I have found that the use of
in-class reective writing can be an effective tool for accessing
teachers emotional worlds. A silent time of in-class journaling
often yields more honest and detailed accounts than might be
generated from a spontaneous large-group discussion. These
written reections can receive an individualized response from the
course instructor (via written feedback or in-person conferencing).
They can also serve as anonymous starting points for group
discussion (assuming that the participants are told ahead of time
that their writing might be referred to in this way). I often initiate
discussion of a difcult topic by presenting a question that creates
a space for possible negative emotions. Sample questions, at which
my teachers-in-training sometimes laugh but eventually answer,
are as follows:
1. How many of you hate taking tests? Why?
2. How do you feel about yourself as a writer? What are your
strengths and weaknesses?
3. What are you most afraid of in teaching (even if you think such
fears may be irrational)?
I usually open such discussion by sharing frankly about my own
fears, frustrations, and failures. In this way, I hope to demonstrate
the sort of vulnerability I wish to see in my developing teachers. For

if I am not willing to share openly with my students, I may actually

reinforce rather than dismantle the model teacher myth.
Another way emotional identity can be cultivated is through
the integration of emotional literacy as a topic of study in school
settings. In recent decades, the number of programs, resources,
and curricula devoted to this and related topics has increased
dramatically. However, two weaknesses seem to persist in
programs of this kind: First, they tend to be disconnected from
subject area content, focusing on quotidian topics separate from
academics. It is important, of course, that students discuss emotion
in relation to their social relationships and personal interests.
However, emotion must be an integral part of students other
academic studies as well. The importance of this integration
became more clear to me in my conversations with a colleague
whose seventh-grade son had begun to display symptoms of
depression. She discovered upon talking with him that he was
feeling tremendous sadness in reaction to the depictions of poverty
being presented in his social studies class. My colleague expressed
frustration that the school districtdone known to be quite
progressive about social issuesdhad forgotten to consider the
emotional impact of this academic content on its students. She
spent time working with her son to help him recognize and accept
these emotions, as well as to nd some consolation in learning
about the work of organizations dedicated to alleviating poverty
both locally and around the world. By ignoring the emotional
aspect of discussions of social issues, the district had missed
a valuable opportunity to integrate emotions and intellect.
The second weakness of emotional literacy curricula is that, as
Zembylas points out, they often lack a critical approach. Conicting and/or discomforting emotions tend to be overlooked, as
emotional identity is constructed as a static, monolithic landscape.
Michalinos Zembylas has attempted to counteract these tendencies
and to highlight the dynamic nature of emotional identity. His
ultimate goal is the development of
a way of thinking that can help [teachers] to overcome the
emotional rules that make them objects, to negotiate new
positions and new emotional rules in their professional lives.to
think and author themselves differently, to ask not only how
emotion discourses and performances have cut them off from
their desires but also how these have installed alternative
desires and habits. (2003, p. 119).
Zembylas calls for teacher training practices that emphasize the
multiple facets of identity, reminding us that emotion and the self
are inextricably bound (p. 115). His practices also include explicit
discussion of the ways that institutional power limits emotional
expression and creates values conicts for teachers (p. 125).
Educators must be given the space and opportunity to vocalize
their complex and even contradicting emotional responses to
issues such as standardized testing, classroom management, and
work-life balance. By recognizing that multiple and conicting
emotions likely exist around these issues, we begin to normalize
the expression of emotional experience in and around the classroom (Zembylas, 2005). Zembylas describes this approach as one in
which emotional identity is not essentialized but performed,
through the act of expression. This performance is cyclical: Just as
emotions emerge from our experiences, they also construct us as
teachers and as human beings.
The benets of highlighting emotional identity in educational
settings extend beyond the immediacies of effective pedagogy.
Through the expression of emotional identity, teachers can develop
greater reexivity, stronger solidarity, and heightened sensitivity
toward their colleagues and students. Recognizing emotional
identity in the educational process may well be our most effective
tool of resistance to the persistent dehumanization of the teaching

S. Shapiro / Teaching and Teacher Education 26 (2010) 616621

profession. Teacher identity must begin to encompass the

emotional realities of human existence. For as John Dewey told us,
Education is not a preparation for life; education is life itself.

References
Acker, S. (1992). Creating careers: women teachers at work. Curriculum Inquiry,
22(2), 141163.
Bambino. (2002). Critical friends. Educational Leadership, 59(6), 2527.
Beijaard, D., Meijer, P. C., & Verloop, N. (2004). Reconsidering research on teachers
professional identity. Teaching and Teacher Education, 20(2), 107128.
Buber, M. (2002). Between man and man. London/New York: Scribner.
Darby, A. (2008). Teachers emotions in the reconstruction of professional selfunderstanding. Teaching and Teacher Education, 24(5), 11601172.
Day, C., & Leitch, R. (2001). Teachers and teacher educators lives: the role of
emotion. Teaching and Teacher Education, 17(4), 403415.
Emmer, E. T. (1994). Toward an understanding of the primacy of classroom
management, and discipline. Teacher Educator, 6, 6569.
Flinders, D. J. (1988). Teacher isolation and the new reform. Journal of Curriculum
and Supervision, 4(1), 1729.
Freire, P. (2000). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Continuum.
Fried, R. L. (1995). The passionate teacher. Boston: Beacon Press.
Golby, M. (1996). Teachers emotions: An illustrated discussion. Cambridge Journal of
Education, 26, 423434.
Grumet, M. (1988). Bitter milk: Women and teaching. Amherst, MA: University of
Massachusetts.
Hargreaves, A. (1998). The emotional practice of teaching. Teaching and Teacher
Education, 14(8), 835854.
Hargreaves, A. (2000). Mixed emotions: teachers perceptions of their interactions
with students. Teaching and Teacher Education, 16, 811826.
Hargreaves, A. (2001). Emotional geographies of teaching. Teachers College Record,
103(6), 10561080.
Huberman, M. (1993). Steps toward a developmental model of the teaching career.
In L. Kremer-Hayon, H. C. Vonk, & R. Fessler (Eds.), Teacher professional development: A multiple perspective approach (pp. 93118). Amsterdam: Swets &
Zeitlinger.

621

Lasky, S. (2000). The cultural, and emotional politics of teacherparent interactions.

Teaching and Teacher Education, 16, 843860.
Lasky, S. (2005). A sociocultural approach to understanding teacher identity, agency
and professional vulnerability in a context of secondary school reform. Teaching
and Teacher Education, 21(8), 899916.
Liljestrom, A., Roulston, K., & deMarrais, K. (2007). Theres no place for feeling
like this in the workplace: women teachers anger in school settings. In
P. Schutz, & R. Pekrun (Eds.), Emotion in education (pp. 267284). London:
Academic Press.
McDermott, M. (2002). Collaging pre-service teacher identity. Teacher Education
Quarterly, 29(4), 5368.
Nias, J. (1989). Primary teachers talking: A study of teaching as work. London:
Routledge.
Nussbaum, M. (2003). Upheavals of thought: The intelligence of emotions. Cambridge UP.
OConnor, K. E. (2008). You choose to care: teachers, emotions, and professional
identity. Teaching and Teacher Education, 24(1), 117126.
Reio, T. G., Jr. (2005). Emotions as a lens to explore teacher identity and change:
a commentary. Teaching and Teacher Education, 21, 985993.
Sutton, R. (2000). The emotional experiences of teachers. Paper presented at the
annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, New
Orleans, LA.
Sutton, R. (2007). Teachers anger, frustration, and self-regulation. In P. Schutz, &
R. Pekrun (Eds.), Emotion in education (pp. 259274). London: Academic
Press.
Sutton, R., & Wheatley, K. (2003). Teachers emotions and teaching: a review of the
literature and directions for future research. Educational Psychology Review,
15(4), 327358.
Zembylas, M. (2003). Emotions and teacher identity: a poststructural perspective.
Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, 9, 213238.
Zembylas, M. (2005). Teaching with emotion: A postmodern enactment. Charlotte, NC:
Information Age Publishing.

Shawna Shapiro is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Washington, where she also
received her MATESOL degree. She is an instructor in two Seattle-based teacher
training programs, and has contributed chapters on pedagogical practice for several
volumes published by TESOL, Inc and Anker Publishing. She has also written other
pieces for several scholarly and professional publications.