How to cultivate personal learning and professional growth in a disrupting time among reactions, resistances and collective transformations. An empirical study with italian school teachers

Scenario: COVID 19 had a severe impact in every sphere of life, and education is not an exception of this. The pandemic caused by the spread of the COVID-19 is producing an epochal change that is irreversibly transforming the nature, objectives, and didactic and organizational practices of Higher Education systems. This is particularly urgent in some countries, like Italy, where the spread of the pandemic was terribly more advanced than in other states. Object of the study: This article presents the results of a national study about reactions, feelings, and resistance to the changes of primary and secondary school teachers imposed by the lockdown due to the pandemic. Literature review and conceptual framework: The conceptual framework adopted for the study includes the empirical research on the constructs of collective disorienting dilemma (Dirkx, Mezirow, & Cranton, 2006), traumatic exposure to cumulative adverse experiences (Felitti, 2017), and emotional impact (Cerniglia, Cimino, & Ammaniti, 2020). Our hypothesis is that the pandemic’s unexpected widespread affects as well as the consequential lockdown, imposed in many countries as a first measure to prevent the diffusion of the contagions, may be assimilated to: a traumatic experience with high emotional impact on people’s mindsets and behaviors; a collective, disorienting dilemma capable of eliciting emotional reactions and intensifying senses of disposability while people, if adequately supported, attempt to learn and adapt to change. Research questions: What kind of feelings, reactions, and behaviors did school teachers assume during and after the lockdown? How did teachers, faculty, and educational instructors react to the shift from in-person classes to distanced learning and which factors influenced their reactions the most? What factors were most effective in helping them to cultivate their professional development through and while engaging with these epochal challenges? Design and methodology: Starting from those questions, an online survey was designed and administered to more than 400 in-service teachers of primary, secondary, and high schools across Italy. 348 teachers completed the survey. Among them, 20,40 % of the respondents were primary school teachers (N=71); 37,07% of the respondents (N= 129) were secondary school teachers; 42,53% of the respondents were teachers of high school (N=148). Statistical descriptive analyses were carried out. Findings: The majority of the respondents reported emotions of sadness, melancholy and sense of loss during the experience of lockdown. Some factors emerged as potentially affecting the increase of negative/positive feelings, such as the material conditions of the home environment, the number of people at home and the type of job, the openness and disposability to change and adapt to new life conditions. Factors that impacted positively on school teachers’ reactions and feelings to the pandemic were: a) technology adaptability and readiness; b) accessibility to sophisticated platforms Romano, p. 96 and tools for conducting online classes; c) the social support perceived by their institutions and the community of the colleagues. Theoretical and pedagogical implications: The implications of this research are discussed with recommendations for supporting teachers to increase their knowledge and familiarity with the highly technological instruments of the online distance learning and to acquire capacity to make the difference in (a) addressing digital divide and technological poverty in students, and (b) guarantee equity and accessibility of the all-digital contents for all students. Practical implications: The research identifies a unique approach to intercept factors that can trigger and facilitate transformations of perspective in educators, teachers, and faculty engaged with the challenges of the disruptive changes due to the COVID-19 pandemics. This is particularly relevant when lots of countries in the world are facing the third wave of the contagions and the measures to prevent the exponential growth of the curve.