The Role of Unconscious Awareness of Teachers within Teacher-child Relationship

Abstract

This article is a descriptive study which aims to investigate preschool teachers' awareness of their own unconscious and the contribution of unconscious processes to educational activities. It presents a literary review on education as a meeting of the teacher and student at a certain point in time and space, not only at a knowledge level but also with their inner psychological processes. The classroom is an arena in which teachers question themselves via interaction, face their true self and unique characteristics. The educational environment can be purified with the search for the teacher's awareness of the unconscious by eliminating ambitions, prejudices and negative psychological experiences. Only then does it transform into an environment of symbolism, higher level thinking and free thinking.

Significance Of The Irrational In Education

“…One phenomenon that appears to be a common factor in the dynamics of the helping relationshipeducational or otherwise -is transference, an unconscious displacement of thoughts, feelings, and behaviours from a previous significant relationship onto a current relationship (Robertson, 1999, 152) Citing Douglas L. Robertson, the authors of the article "The Role of Unconscious Awareness of Teachers within Teacher-child Relationship" Gölbaşı and Önder (2017) -Overreaction to a specific student, sudden impairment of a relationship with a student, distant and hostile behaviours, -Defensive behaviours (withdrawing support or ignoring the student), -Aggressive communication between the teacher and the student, -Emotional distance of the student or oversensitivity for a student's absence, -Teacher's decentralization of her own authority, treating students as equal, or a parental figure (mother or father) or a child figure, -Transferring to traditional gender roles while behaving in a non-sexist manner, -Preserving boundaries although removing the barriers toward a specific student, -Student's intolerance to criticism, perceiving criticism as an attack to her personality or oversensitivity to a specific student's criticism, -Unexplained learning difficulties (writing, mathematics, communication or thinking), -Too much need for approval of the teacher and vice versa, -Fear of a teacher or fear of a student, -To feel an obligation to "save" a student or quite the contrary student's feeling of an obligation to save a teacher, -Student's envy for or competition with the teacher or a teacher's envy of or competition with a student. (Gölbaşı & Önder, 2017, p. 135) Unfortunately, we must admit that the educational system in schools is failing.…”