BEING A TEACHER - EMOTIONS AND OPTIMAL EXPERIENCE WHILE TEACHING GIFTED-CHILDREN

The emotions experienced by teachers while teaching is a relatively un explored avenue of research. One teacher, Alex, was studied using phen omenological interviews and participant observation to understand the emotions he experienced while teaching in a special program for gifted and talented children. Data were analyzed using inductive procedures. Alex experienced a variety of emotions generated when the instruction al dynamics of the lesson were congruent or incongruent with his profe ssional practical knowledge. Most of his emotions were positive. A com pelling emotional state, ''being a teacher,'' was found to incorporate many of his feelings and was found repeatedly in his classes. Alex se emed to be trying to recreate being a teacher as he taught. His emotio nal state was interpreted to be isomorphic to what Csikszentmihalyi (1 990) calls ''optimal experience.'' The findings suggest that the speci al class setting established conditions which increased the probabilit y that Alex would be having an optimal experience.