Emotional landscapes of living, learning, and teaching: A lens within, from learner to teacher-researcher

Abstract

This article explores experiences that have influenced my choices for becoming a teacher and then researcher. I used autoethnography as a research method to explore significant moments in my life during the years of both my primary and secondary education. The cumulative power of these life vignettes have been researched to understand the diverse emotional, complex and multilayered experiences of my formative years of childhood and how such emotions may have shaped my career choices and who I am at this very moment. This paper meticulously collected artifacts such as personal photos, newspapers, transcribed recordings of moments of intense emotions and memories as sources of data that supported a journey of growth. These data were analysed using thematic analysis and compared with my own written recollections, together with visual representations of emotions found in photographs of my life journey. Findings of this study revealed a journey of “self” that has explored and documented an understanding of the motivations of myself as a teacher-researcher to become the person I am. Today, my intrinsic interest in emotional intelligence area of research motivated me to explore the genesis of my own experiences and successes. In this autoethnography I become a learner, analysing my life data searching for themes such as self-awareness, perseverance, resilience, empathy, motivation and social skills, all found in the repertoire of a person’s emotional intelligence.