International Teacher Education Conference 2014 1

International Teacher Education Conference 2014
which "establish, maintain, change or end the relationship between the individual and his surroundings in
matters important to the individual' (2003:122) while Frijda (1986) consideres emotions to be the result of
interaction with real or expected consequences of events that the subject consideres important and that they can
be expressed directly or indirectly, the object being to influence the behaviour of others. Milivojevic (2007)
agrees that emotions always appear as reactions to certain occurance and for him emotion has the meaning of
qualitatively personal reaction to a life situation hence he uses the term emotional response, which is accepted
and applied in this paper. The teaching process is a place of many events and experiences that include success
and failure, comfort and discomfort, complaints and praises, unexpected results and sudden events. These
present opportunities for different positive and negative emotional responses that can cause certain behaviour.
Thus success usually leads to happiness and enthusiasm which lead to further motivation and interest while
failure can cause sadness and withdrawal which are reflected in lack of motivation for participation in the
teaching process. Pleasant emotions such as curiosity, joy and enthusiasm help the learning process and make it
more successful, while the state of vulnerability ( usually related to exams and testing) blocks the higher
cognitive functions, in other words, students find it hard to think clearly (Miljkovic and Rijavec, 2009). Joy is a
special type of satisfaction directed towards the future. It occures when there is a high probability of fulfillment
of a desire in the near future (Milivojevic, 2007). The student can feel joy upon completing an exam for which
he will earn a high grade. The student is content if one of his desires has been fulfilled during the teaching
process. The student can solve a task successfully, in practical science projects or group projects...For the
emotional response of satisfaction it is important that the student has a desire. The purpose is to award the
student for the type of behaviour that led to the fulfillment of the desire. In the teaching process we sometimes
find the emotional response of indifference which is defined as absence of emotion. If the student has no needs
or desires, as well as no values he wants to protect, we say he is indifferent. In pedagogy it is important to
differentiate between situational and strucutural indifference. Structural indifference cannot be dealt with in the
frame of pedagogy, while situational indifference can be affected by different methodological scenarios. Thus it
is important to differentiate between suitable and unsuitable indifference (Milivojevic, 2007) Unsuitable one is
found at those situations where it is expected from the student to have emotional response while suitable
indifference is linked to certain characteristics of the student's personality so we usually describe that paricular
student as calm. Student can feel worried during the teaching process. He is anxious that some circumstances
during the teaching process might endanger his values or something he consideres his responsibility (eg. he is
the team leader in a group project and he estimates that the team will not be able to meet all the objectives). The
purpose of concern is to activate those potentials that might change the udesirable outcome in the future.The
student is searching for a solution in the present that will decrease or prevent the unwanted outcome in the
future. Pride is one of the pleasant emotional responses in students during the teaching process. The student is
proud in those situations that make him feel he contributed towards a positive image in the eyes of authority
(usually a teacher), for example he has successfully completed a given task.This emotional response is very
important in the teaching process because it allows the student to create a positive self image since it has been
confirmed by the authority, the teacher. In this particular emotional response the role of the teacher is very
important. This is especially true in the first years of primary education. When later during the education process
the student separates his self image from others' opinions he becomes capable of feeling self approval and self
respect. Respect is then reflected in other relationships, towards people as well as things. The theory of human
rights stresses that every human being has the right to dignity which means that being human gives us the right
to exist and be respected (Milivojevic, 2007) The student respects those teachers and classmates who have the
qualities he finds highly valuable and important. In analogy, he feels self respect when he identifies those same
values in himself. If the teaching process puts the student in such situations and challanges through which the
student can confirm his personal values, the student will develop the feeling of self respect which is of great
importance for his future development.
Emotional responses between students
The teaching process in the school system is organised in hierarchical subsystems. One of them are classes of
peer groups. In peer groups the students satisfy the need for intimacy, form self image, develop social skills,
learn to help, share and cooperate. Class groups have great importance in students' development since during the
primary school years the group becomes an important social context. Even though children as young as two
years old sometimes adjust their behaviour in the interest of the group, the true socialization begins in the
primary school years (Vasta, Heith, Miller 2005) Emotionally important events in a class are more often related
to the students' relationships than to the teachers (Ulich, 2001; acc.to Kiper,Mischke, 2008) so they are of crucial
importance in creating the teaching process. A class typically consists of a larger number of students, although
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