Generating Meaning In The Education Life Of Preschool Teachers

The education life of preschool teachers is one of their most valuable lifestyles,and it is also the realistic basis of their professional development.The original caring,communicative,aesthetic,and transcendent nature of education life are the root of meaning.The pursuit of a poetic dwelling education life should be the ideal and original intention of preschool teachers in the enlightenment stage of education.However,influenced by the strike of instrumental rationality on educators‘ education life,as well as the inherent conflicts between routine and non-routine,rationality and irrationality,experience and transcendence,as well as egoism and altruism,the original "meaning" of education life has always been obscured,leading to a series of severe crises,such as burnout,indifference,sense of worthlessness,and low selfidentity among preschool teachers.Based on the in-depth interviews with twelve preschool teachers in Shanghai,this study attempts to demonstrate the experiencing,generating,and surging process of the meaning of these twelve teachers,and its influence on their professional growth and educational life.By revealing how these teachers generating meaning,this research aims to provide a possible pathway to a poetic education life for many preschool teachers who are still suffered in "meaning avoidance","meaning anxiety" and "meaning loss".This study consists of three parts.The first part is the introduction,which includes three chapters,proposal of the research question,existing research,and the research methods.The second part is the main part of this study,which contains five chapters.The fourth chapter first introduces the research idea and framework.Based on the basic principle of phenomenology "back to things themselves"(Zu den Sachen Selbst),our idea to study the meaning of educators‘ education life is to put it back into their vivid education life so that the meaning can "reveal " and "clarify" itself.According to the basic characteristics and structure of preschool teachers‘ educational life,we build a three-dimension framework: synchronic(which refers to teachers‘ oneday education life,including teacher-child relationship,educational context,educational action)-diachronic(educational time)-transcendent model,as the presentation framework of meaning and its generation.The fifth chapter focuses on the teacher-child relationship,showing how the meaning can be generated through establishing intimate bonds,generating and blending emotions and dialogue between teachers and children,realize the tacit understanding between teachers and children,the intersection of soul,to obtain the sense of fullness,completeness,and belonging of symbiosis in teacher-child relationships.The sixth chapter focuses on education context,which shows how a preschool teacher abandons habitual thinking and regains the sensitivity and play spirit by experiencing the whole educational context.By having a dialogue in the interpretation and the meaning of the educational content and the specific and changeable educational situation,making intelligent,aesthetic,and contextual responses,reshaping themselves in this process,and gaining diversified experiences.The seventh chapter focuses on preschool teachers‘ education action,which shows how preschool teachers retain their vestige in the education life through daily educational actions.In this educational production,creation,and dedication,they create the position and method that the self-subject should have and gain selfaffirmation and enrichment in the process.The eighth chapter focuses on the education life time,which shows how preschool teachers can obtain the clarification,accumulation,promotion,and supplement of meaning by grasping and experiencing the "human nature" of objective time and scientific time;through retrospective reflection and recollection of the past;the expansion and enrichment of the impressiveness of the present,and the imagination of the future forward-looking,teachers obtain clarification,accumulation,improvement,and supplement of meaning;The ninth chapter focuses on the transcendence of education life,showing how preschool teachers bravely undertake their responsibilities and missions by transcending self-centeredness,surpassing others' judgment,becoming the true person who is self-determined and independent.It transcends the deficiency of self and gains the wholeness of life in the process of the infinite tendency to goodness and perfection,and the sense of holiness and glory from transcendence.The generation process of meaning is the process of subjectivity generation by preschool teachers in the educational life.It is with the generation of meaning that preschool teachers can establish themselves,develop themselves,and surpass themselves in their educational life.In this spiral transcendence process of "disintegration-sublimation-disintegrationre-sublimation",they move toward an infinite world of meaning.The third part is the suggestion and reflection section.In the tenth chapter,we put forward suggestions from two aspects.One is the internal basis of the meaning generation of preschool teachers.The other is the external conditions of the meaning generation of preschool teachers.We claimed that in order to "lead a meaningful educational life",preschool teachers need to have the awakening of "being out of habitus",the courage of insisting self-loyalty,as well as the confidence in the process of experiencing,feeling and practicing in the bits and pieces of educational actions.From the external perspective,generating meaning needs to form a dynamic balance between teachers' freedom and discipline at the preschool level,which makes the "external regulations" for preschool teachers are transformed into "autonomy and consciousness" of teachers;the macro-level requires the reconstruction of educational beliefs and provide a solid meaning system and strong support for individual preschool teachers.The eleventh chapter explains the contribution,limitation,and prospect of the study.Finally,the clarification of the value of meaning topic in teachers‘ education life research.The concern for meaning is the rediscover of the hidden inner world of preschool teachers,and the process of teachers' exploration for self and the essence of self-existence educational life.It is because of the existence of meaning that the educational life of preschool teachers no longer stays at the level of concepts and facts but provides possibilities to preschool teachers in a "surging" and "continuous" way.Because of the generation of meaning,educational life has rich,diverse,vivid,and emotional characters,and becomes the place where the educational life of preschool teachers is surging.The emergence of meaning can help preschool teachers find a way to integrate themselves with the external educational life,help them establish a sense of self-feeling and responsibility,and gain intimacy in interpersonal communication.The continuous generation and flow of meaning in educational life is the symbol of preschool teachers' professional maturity.The values and transcendence experience also bring precious moral life to preschool teachers and become the spiritual support for their follow-up professional development and achieving educational ideals and obtain spiritual freedom and happiness.