Private Feelings, Public Expressions: Professional Jealousy and the Moral Practice of Teaching

This paper explores the issue of personal factors that impinge upon education. More specifically, it addresses professional jealousy among teachers and how it affects the moral practice of teaching. Our focus is teachers' emotions in general and teachers' jealousies in particular, in the context of the ideal of the moral teacher. We identify and criticise three common dichotomies that tend to mar explorations of teachers' emotions. We illustrate issues of professional jealousy as revealed in an interview with a headteacher in Taiwan, explaining the societal context and eliciting the emotional issues. We argue that too little attention is given to the moral practice of teaching qua emotional labour: labour that places moral burdens on teachers as individual human beings. We maintain that teacher training must focus more on the moral and emotional self-education of teacher trainees and professional teachers, helping them to lead well-rounded lives as integrated personal and professional beings.