Approximation to teachers in training moral thinking drawn from the narrative experiences in the fulfilment of standards

Abstract

The following results are part of an investigation developed at the Master Degree in Education in the Universidad Libre de Colombia. Throughout this research, we sought to identify how past experiences based on standards, family and school life, influence on the moral thinking of teachers in training when determining elementary students’ behavior as appropriate or inappropriate within the classroom. We worked with 5 female teachers in training who, by means of a focus group technique, shared their experiences, so that, through a hermeneutic narrative process, there could be seen the impact that has what they lived along their childhood and adolescence when it comes to moraly value their own students’ behavior. The results indicate that prior family experiences influence on the attribution of the cause of what inappropriate behavior is. Aditionally, their past experiences as students, contribute to the way they understand authority and relationships with their pupils. Along with that, their emotional baggage helps to decide whether the teachers’ decisions before the misbehavior is appropriate or not. Summing up, academic training and professional practice provide information enough to attempt to solve their inner conflicts (moral dilemmas) when facing their students’ inappropriate behavior.