Emotion and School Update: Tensions and Provocations

Although the emotion work of teaching has been part of the conversation for more than 30 years, it remains a side conversation, as sort of an afterthought to academics and the accepted mainstream point of teaching and learning. In this chapter, we reflect on what has occurred in the field in the decade since our book Emotion in school: Understanding how the hidden curriculum influences relationships, leadership, teaching and learning was published. We approach the topic through a lens of tensions that we perceive occurring in the field. Emotions in schools, for the most part, remain the hidden curriculum in that in many ways emotions are still downplayed in the classroom and have no space in teacher preparation programs. Teachers, students, administrators, and teacher educators alike are left to deal with the tensions that confront them that educational researchers have yet to resolve – tensions related to measurement (what are we measuring and why), related to how we define emotion and tensions related to practice. In this short chapter we do not have the space to address all tensions that might arise; we have chosen a few to provoke conversation and thoughts about where the field may go from here. Suggestions for beginning teachers and research for teacher preparation are offered.